Buried Alive
by Lucy Conan
Summary: The breakup between the team and Walter and Paige and Walter has been a ploy to lure Collins out of hiding. He does come out of hiding - but different than the team anticipated. Now the team has to hurry to rescue two of their own from Collins… If they fail, their teammates will die. - This story is now complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Buried Alive**

Disclaimer:

I do not own any of the characters or the TV show Scorpion - CBS does - I only borrow them for my own personal entertainment - if I owned any of it, the show would not have ended the way it did.

The basic theory that the team and Waige could be just pretending to have broken up to lure out Collins was posted by someone on twitter - unfortunately I can't remember who it was but the idea stuck in my head and wanted to be written. So dear unknown Twitter-poster, thank you for this plot bunny and if you want to be officially credited, please let me know who you are and I'll do it.

This will be a multi-chapter story, but I have already written it pretty far already - this means I will be able to frequently update this story - though I am still doing final editing on the chapters.

English is not my first language and writing dialogue is not my forte - I hope you still enjoy the story and feel free to leave feedback (please be gentle!)

Summary: The breakup between the team and Walter and Paige and Walter has been a ploy to lure Collins out of hiding. He does come out of hiding - but different than the team anticipated.

Now the team has to hurry to rescued two of their own from Collins… If they fail, their teammates will die.

* * *

**Buried Alive**

Chapter 1

Paige slowly woke up. She blinked, but the darkness didn't recede. That meant she was either blindfolded or in a dark room. She couldn't feel anything over her eyes - so dark room it was.

She tried to move and found herself free to do so - but her left arm quickly met a smooth solid surface, even before halfway stretching her arm out - as did her right hand when she reached it out in the opposite direction - the material beneath her fingers felt like wood. She also became aware of the fact that she was lying face down and the surface below her seemed to be uneven and not as solid as the sides of the enclosed space she found herself in.

Her mind was still fuzzy and her senses weren't fully functional yet, but she tried to piece together what had happened and why she was where she was.

She had been taken at her kitchen sink - one moment she had been cleaning her dishes, silently lamenting the broken dishwasher she had not gotten around to get fixed yet - the next moment a rag was pressed over her mouth and nose - and before she realised what was going on and why the rag stank the way it did, she had inhaled in shock - and with it the chloroform the rag had been drenched with.

She had already woken once before, finding herself on the ground outside, lying on fresh soil, the bright sun blinding her as she blinked to focus her eyes. When she had looked around she had seen a coffin standing next to herself...

She gasped in shock as realisation hit her. Was she in that coffin? Had Mark Collins put her in that coffin and buried her alive?

o - o - o - o - o

_Mark Collins had also been there, grinning down at her like the lunatic he was._

_„__Aaaaw - Paige, Paige, Paige! Don't spoil your own surprise!" He had said with that belittling tone he liked using for anyone who was not Walter O'Brien or himself. _

_"__Prepare for a final reunion!" he had added before pressing the rag over her mouth again. _

_The smell had been less pungent and she had tried not to breathe in - but in her still half-dazed state the little chloroform she did unwittingly inhale was enough to drop her back into darkness._

o - o - o - o - o

She assessed her present predicament and also wondered what kind of reunion Collins had been referring to, but her mind was still having difficulty making a connection between the words Collins had spoken to her. Instead Paige came to the unpleasant realisation that she was not alone inside the coffin.

Now that her mind slowly cleared the fog left behind by the chloroform up, the input from her senses was finally processed properly. And with it the information that the uneven, not-as-solid-as-wood surface below her was not a surface, it was a human body.

Until this moment, Paige had been able to remain calm and collected - but as she became aware of the human form beneath her, her heart started to race and her blood pounded in her ears.

"Whoever you are, please don't be dead!" she whispered, a sob escaping her throat at the thought of Collins putting her into a coffin with a dead body. While she wouldn't wish her current predicament on anyone else, she desperately hoped she was not lying on a corpse.

She took several deep breaths, then brought her right hand up and moved it along the other person's body to find their neck and check for a pulse.

Paige gasped in relief when she found a steady pulse. As she was starting to sort her thoughts again and was calming down, she also became aware of the familiar scent of the other person. She was intimately familiar with that scent - even though it had been weeks since she had last seen the man.

"Walter!" she gasped, then quickly ran her fingers over his face and along his skull. Had Collins used chloroform on Walter, too, or had he been knocked out? Or hurt him otherwise? Why was he not awake?

Relief washed over her when she didn't find any indication of a head wound or a bump, but apparently her investigation had stirred Walter. She felt him jerk slightly under her and a low groan escaped his throat.

"Walter?" she shook him softly. "Walter, wake up!"

It took another few moments for Walter to become halfway aware of his surroundings.

"Paige?" he finally asked, his voice slightly slurred. "What happened? Where are we?"

"It's Collins! He locked us in a coffin - I don't know where and why."

o - o - o - o - o

Happy knocked on the door of Paige's condo. It had been two months since they formed Centipede Partners and six weeks since they had met Walter when trying to get the same job he had been trying to secure for Scorpion.

The weeks had not been easy on them, especially not Paige. Not being able to see Walter was hard on the former waitress. Especially since she had been forced to hurl all those awful things at him, even though she didn't mean any of them.

The plan had sounded so simple when Walter had laid it out to them back in Africa after he had finally gotten his head out of his ass and confessed the whole story to Paige. At first he had only admitted to going to the lecture, jumping on Paige's quick assessment that he had gone alone because he had known she didn't want to go.

But before they had stepped onto the plane back to the States, Walter had decided that the half-truth did not do and confessed everything to Paige. Paige had been deadly silent for a long time, causing Walter to fidget nervously and expect the worst.

Happy thought back to that moment.

o - o - o - o - o

_Walter looked at Paige nervously, fully expecting her to rip his head off - or worse, dump him right on the spot._

_Paige paced, trying to come to peace with the new information. _

_Finally, she spoke. "Okay. Walter, it's okay! I am not happy that you didn't tell me sooner, but I believe you that it meant nothing. I forgive you, but please, never ever keep things from me again."_

_Walter sighed with relief, especially when Paige reached forward and drew him into a hug._

_"__Wow, for a moment I thought she'd dump you, 197!" Toby chuckled, only to get the back of his head slapped by Happy - hard._

_"__Ow! My skull!" The behaviourist moaned in exaggerated agony._

_Walter froze in Paige's arms, then slowly extricated himself from her. _

_"Maybe that is exactly what you should do!" He said, looking at Paige with wide, slightly frightened eyes, betraying his own statement._

_"__Excuse me?!" Paige asked, incredulous, as the rest of the team's jaws dropped in unism._

_"__We have been looking for a plan to lure Collins out of hiding." He explained. "One of the ideas we have been tossing around has been pretending that the team breaks up after a big fight." He looked at the others, swallowing hard, before he continued - obviously not very happy with his own plan._

_"__What if I had not told you the truth, but you would have found out by coincidence. Let's say you found the ticket stubs somewhere?"_

_Paige didn't have to think long. "I would have been really pissed off at you. But not enough to break up with you."_

_"__But what if Florence would choose that moment to appear in the garage and claim that she has fallen in love with Walter?" Happy continued to spin Walter's idea further._

_"__Well, that would really take the cake!" Paige agreed. "It might incense me. I might have the feeling that she could be taking my place because I might feel that her intellectual bond with you might be stronger than your emotional one with me. Especially considering that dream you had around Christmas and the fact that she has been spending a few evenings working on theories with you."_

_Walter winced a bit - there was a slight hint of jealousy in her words._

_"__I assure you, that is solely platonic!" Walter gently squeezed her hand. "It's the same as if I would be working on them with Sly or Ralph."_

_"__I know, Walter." Paige squeezed his hand back. "I'm just filling in my part of that plan you're hatching."_

_"__Well, it might be more believable if Walter and I get into fight after Florence's confession. I have mentioned my crush on her in the garage several times. If Collins has been listening in on us in the past months as we already suspect, he is bound to have heard about it at one point." Sylvester added his own twist to their plan._

_Toby nodded. "Sylvester might get upset, verbally attack Walter - Walter retaliates and somehow Megan get's brought up and Walter blows up at Sly because of it. Sylvester gets so upset and fed up he quits and walks out. That sets off Paige, who dumbs Walter and walks out. Happy and I could pretend to feel unable with dealing with the fallout on Walter's side and walk out as well."_

_"__What about me?" Cabe asked, he didn't like the idea of everyone walking out on Walter - even if it was just for pretending to lure out Collins._

_"__The whole thing would be more believable if Cabe sticks with Walter. You mentioned seeing Walter as your surrogate son and it would be unbelievable if you walked out as well. Besides, Walter will need at least one shoulder to lean on. I know we're going to be pretending, but we will have to keep that ruse up perfectly for weeks, if now months. The scenario we are describing is going to be a messy break-up of the team and Walter and Paige. Words will fall, that despite being only pretend, will hurt, especially if we want to be believable." Toby pointed out._

_"__That means, at least Sly, Paige and Walter will have to hit each other where it really hurts and then walk away from each other for weeks. The psychological impact of this is hard to predict! We are basically going to run an undercover operation - and not everyone has the proper mental preposition for something like this. There is a reason undercover agents are specifically selected and trained for long-term undercover operations." Toby elaborated._

_Everyone nodded. They knew it would be hard emotionally, but if they ever wanted to rid themselves of the threat that was Mark Collins, they had to do it._

_"__We should put a time limit on this plan!" Paige said. "If this doesn't lure out Collins within, let's say three months, we will call it off. I am not going to loose an __undetermined period of time of my relationship with Walter or our cyclone to that jerk."_

_The thought of not being able to see Walter for three months hurt her almost physically, especially considering she had to pretend to have broken up with him. And she also knew the way she had to do it would be messy and hurtful - otherwise Collins wouldn't buy it. They didn't go up against some twat - they were going up against a literal genius. Collins might be a sociopath and not able to relate to emotions, but he could recognise them when he saw them._

_"__Three months is quite a long time." Walter winced. It had been his plan - but that didn't mean that he had to like it. _

_"__We should go with three months." Cabe interjected. "Collns will take a bit of time to see if it's true and not just pretending - three months should be enough to sell the ruse. And if that doesn't flush him out then perhaps the prospect of the team getting back together will. I'll run the whole idea past Katherine Cooper, perhaps we can treat this as a proper undercover operation and get some homeland help."_

_"__Katherine Cooper?" Paige questioned. "I thought she wasn't Deputy Director anymore?" _

_"__Slight change at the top of the food chain." Cabe grinned. "She originally left Homeland, but they just brought her back in as new Director. And she has made it clear that Scorpion is a very important asset to Homeland. I'm sure we'll get all the support we need. Collins is on Homeland's most wanted list and catching him would cement her new position."_

_"__It's settled then!" Toby clapped his hands. "Let's get this show on the road!_

_"__I'm warning you, kids!" Cabe said. "The doc is right, this is going to be psychologically taxing - especially on you two!" He looked at Walter and Paige. _

_Walter looked like he was about to throw up._

o - o - o - o - o

Homeland had provided them with an office space for their alleged new company, Centipede Partners.

Happy snorted again at the name. They had been trying to come up with a name for their pretend company that would be used to convince Collins that the rift between them was meant to be final - after all, if reconciliation was an option, one didn't open up a company as competition of your former friend's company, right?

Sly had mentioned that one of his friends at the Warlock's Chest had just started a bowling team - the Centipedes and had ordered bowling shirts that had not been to their exact liking. Happy had tried to protest, but Paige and Toby had thought it would be a good idea to take those shirts and use them as their company uniform.

Happy had growled and complained, but in the end it was only supposed to be for three months. Also Paige had promised they'd only have to wear them when applying for contracts and they would not exactly go contract-hunting every day.

Happy shook the thoughts from her mind and knocked on the door. Paige's car needed repairs and Happy and Toby had promised to pick her up on their way to Centipede's office and Happy had also promised to take a look at Paige's dishwasher.

While Happy was going up to Paige's condo to check the misbehaving kitchen appliance, Toby wanted to make a short run to the corner coffee shop and get them their morning coffees.

"Ralph?" Happy was surprised, when it was not Paige who answered the door. "Shouldn't you be on your way to school?" She took a closer look at Ralph and worry rose in her - to anyone outside their little group, Ralph would have looked calm - but Happy had learned to read the boy over the years, just as she had learned to read his mentor years before.

"What's wrong?"

"When I woke up, my Mom was gone!" Ralph informed her. "Evidence indicates, she has been taken!"

"Not good!" Happy felt a bad feeling blossom in the pit of her stomach. "What evidence?"

She followed Ralph inside, as the boy silently led her to the living room.

"When I went to bed last night, she wanted to watch her favourite show," he pointed to the still running TV, "After that she wanted to do the dishes before watching another one of her favourite shows - as she claims, but I know that she is rewatching videos of her and Walter. She had been trying to get up her courage to call him and ask him to talk."

Happy couldn't help the small smirk that crept on her lips. Ralph was sticking to their cover, even though his mother had been taken. They were still unsure where exactly Collins was able to listen in on them - it was hard to keep the cover up 24/7 - but they had to.

o - o - o - o - o

_They had had to speed up their timeline, though. Sylvester had caved. Three days ago had been the anniversary of Megan's whole thing had been impacting Sylvester hard - and when Cabe had left them written messages in pre-agreed save locations, that Walter was affected by the pretend-break up a lot harder than they had anticipated and was not doing well the more time passed, the combination of that information and the anniversary had made Sylvester break down. _

_He couldn't stand being part of the reason that Walter was feeling horrible anymore - even though it was just pretend. But luckily he had had the wherewithal to stay in his role when he rushed to the garage and Walter had caught on immediately and stayed in his own role as well, both pretending to sit down and talk about the issues that had caused Sylvester to quit and pretend to reconcile. _

_Sylvester had even topped his performance with Walter and gone over to Florence, pretending to reconcile with her as well. _

_Paige was supposed to follow suit a few days later, allegedly encouraged by Sylvester's successful re-aquaintance with Walter._

o - o - o - o - o

Ralph led Happy over to the small kitchen. "However, Mom seems to have been interrupted while washing the dishes. Even if she did not finish them, she would normally not let the rest sit in the water overnight. Therefore, something has to have happened."

Happy looked at the sink. She could see some of the dishes next to the sink on a drying rack, while the majority was still inside the water-filled sink. The foam had long dissipated and Happy knew the water would be cold by now, if Ralph's timeline was correct - which it most likely was.

She spotted some water on the floor right in front of the sink, as if there had been a struggle and water had been spilled onto the floor. It had to have been a larger amount to leave a rest of not dried up water on the floor even hours after the fact.

"There seems to have been a struggle." She observed, looking at the water on the floor.

"Precisely," Ralph confirmed. "Also, if something had happened that led her to leave on her won accord, Mom would have woken me and taken me with her or organised a sitter for me. While I am 13 years old and should be able to stay alone for a few hours, my Mom does not agree yet."

There was no resentment in Ralph's voice. While he did consider himself old enough to stay alone without his mother worrying, he also knew that it meant that she cared. Having learned from the fellow geniuses childhood stories that that was not the norm for young geniuses, Ralph was grateful for his mother and didn't mind her worrying - to a degree.

"We'll need all hands on deck!" Happy decided reaching for her phone. "Ralph, call Sly and ask him if he's still at home - if yes, tell him to stay there, he'll be picked up, that will be quicker than him coming by bus."

She dialled a number, then waited - it took longer than she expected until the other side picked up and then it wasn't who she expected.

"Cabe? Where's Walter?" Happy asked, then her face paled. "He's been taken, too?"

Just at that moment, the door to Paige's apartment swung open and Toby sauntered in, a cardboard tray with coffee-filled styrofoam cups on it.

"A wonderful good morning, Ralph!" He said enthusiastically before his face fell as he saw his wive's pale, frowning face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors note:**

In my story, Walter has taught the morse code he learned in season 2 to Paige - I don't know morse code myself and have no clue if it would "sound" the way it does in my story, but for the flow of the story, I have made it sound like actual talking. /... / will mark either morse code conversations or written text in my story.

I am well aware that real morse code might not translate to the same extend - but this is my story, so I can do what I want... if you will, see it as the recipient of the message "translating" it to how they know the other person would sound if they spoke the words instead.

Also: my writing program is set to British English, so it keeps correcting it to that spelling. Sometimes I might have crept a bit of American English spelling past it...

o - o - o - o - o - o

Chapter 2

Walter slowly came back from the darkness that had claimed him when he had expected it the least.

The last thing he consciously remembered was sitting at his breakfast table, sipping his coffee and contemplating the conversation he had had with Sylvester and what it meant for their plan going forward.

Then his world had unexpectedly started to spin and wobble until he had lost consciousness.

His mind was already analysing the input his returning senses provided, but his thoughts were scrambled as if his thinking was somehow impaired, only clearing up on an excruciatingly slow pace.

There was touch on his head - and also a permanent touch along the right side of his body. A not inconsiderable weight was half on top of him on his right side. Almost as if another person was lying on him in his bed, but that was ridiculous - he was single - at least that was what they pretended he was and as far as he remembered, the updated plan had not yet progressed far enough to correct that status. He would remember if he and Paige had gone to sleep together.

He wondered why his mind was going there now - until he became consciously aware of hearing Paige's voice.

"...lter, wake up!"

"Paige?" he asked, frowning as he noticed his tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth, the words having difficulty rolling off of it. "What happened? Where are we?"

Her next words felt like a punch to his gut.

"It's Collins! He locked us in a coffin - I don't know where and why."

Walter swallowed. He was by no means squeamish or prone to getting scared easily, but the unbidden conclusions that information brought up in his mind left him feeling cold all of a sudden.

"A coffin?" his voice pitched a little at the end, fear creeping up on him at the thought that Collins might have done what one logically did with an occupied coffin - bury it.

"I saw it and Collins when I woke up after he took me. He chloroformed me again and the next time I woke up was a few minutes ago and we were already in here. What about you? How did he get you? And are you alright?" her breath tickled his chin as she spoke.

He needed a moment to sort through his memories.

"I had just gotten up and was drinking my coffee." He concentrated, "I remember that I started feeling weird - and then I woke up here."

His voice cleared up as he spoke, but the slurring didn't ease up completely yet.

"I think he drugged my coffee." Walter added.

"Indeed I did, Walter!" Collins voice suddenly sneered in his ear. Walter reached up to his right ear and felt an ear piece similar to the ones Scorpion used. "I knew your exceptional IQ was good for something."

"Collins! What do you want?" Walter asked through gritted teeth. He had once considered the other genius a peer - even when he had started to become a problem - but after he had almost cost him his surrogate father, all sentiments of sympathy for Collins had left him.

The only thing he now regretted was ever meeting the other man in the first place.

"You chose that little normal over me - gave her a place in your cyclone when there was none for me - and even when she stole your cyclone you still pine for her affection. Well, if you want her so badly you shall have her - till death does part you." distaste laced Collins' voice.

"I have hooked up an air supply worth 6 hours when I buried you. Once that runs out, you two can rest in peace together." Collins chuckled softly.

„Unless of course your precious Cyclone finds it in their heart to solve the clues I sent them to come and rescue you. But then the question will remain: are they also coming for you Walter, or only for their new boss. Will they rescue you as well, or only Paige?"

"Shut up, Collins!" Walter gritted out. He didn't want to hear Collins words. He knew he was playing into his fear of abandonment.

"Aaaaw! Did I hit a sore spot, Walter?" Collins mocked.

"Don't listen to him!" Paige begged, she could feel Walter tense beneath her under Collin's words.

She had no clue what Collins was telling Walter - but the fact that he responded to Collins and the reaching up had told her that Walter had to have a comm in his ear. She reached up and found a similar ear piece in her own right ear.

That meant that Collins also planned some of his mind games or other similarly unpleasant communication with her - communication with Collins had never been pleasant.

They had to remain calm - she had faith in the others that they would come and rescue them - but if they allowed Collins to upset them…

She moved her hand to Walter's arm and squeezed gently, then tapped morse code onto his arm.

/What is he saying? I can't hear him right now, but he also gave me an ear piece./ she needed to know - if he upset Walter, she needed to know how to help him calm down.

/He buried us with an air supply of 6 hours in total. No idea how much we already used up. He's trying to rile me up that the team will only come for you. He left them clues to find us./ Walter tapped back rapidly, hoping Paige could follow his quick tapping.

He sighed with relief when she confirmed with a short tap to his chest.

He was glad Paige had let him teach her Morse code in case the need for it ever arose - a high likelihood in their line of work and now it finally came in handy.

"Paige! We need to stay calm - we have a limited air supply, we need to make it last until the others find us! We need to preserve air, therefore we have to limit talking to the absolute necessity." Walter informed her vocally.

Paige nodded, then realised that Walter couldn't see it in the dark.

"I agree, only necessary talking." She confirmed. They still had the morse code, but Paige understood why he had also brought her up to speed vocally - better not to let Collins know they had an alternate way of communication.

"Well, how good that I am not under similar restrictions," Collins gloated, this time audible through both ear pieces. "Otherwise you two would be in for a boring few hours ahead of you."

Paige dropped her head on Walter's chest as Walter groaned at the thought of having to endure Collins mind games for the hours to come.

o - o - o - o - o - o

"Show us the box!" Happy ordered as she burst into the garage, Toby, Ralph and Sylvester hot on her heels.

"Good to see you, too, kid!" Cabe greeted her. Happy gave him a curd nod in response.

"Roomie!" She said as way of greeting.

Florence stood next to Cabe, but Happy completely ignored her, staying in character - a character that was currently not on speaking terms with the blonde chemist.

Instead she zoned in on the box sitting in the center of Walter's desk.

She took a knife out of her pocket and sliced the tape holding the top closed, then folded the top flaps of the box back and glared at it's content.

The first item Happy removed from the box was a digital frame. She flipped it over to check it's back, then, finding nothing of interest there, turned it back around and activated it.

The rest of the team huddled around her to peer at the frame.

The screen came alive and the first photo they could see was a picture of Walter lying crouched over the loft's kitchen table, obviously unconscious.

The picture changed after three seconds, revealing a photo of Paige. Paige was pictured lying in the back of a van, her hands bound in front of her. She, too, was unconscious.

The next picture showed Walter lying in the van next to her, equally bound.

Instead of showing another picture, the screen changed to white on black script next:

/The lovebirds finally reunited/ it read.

Cabe let out an aggressive growl, while Happy slammed her fist onto the desk angrily. Sylvester fidgeted nervously as Toby uncharacteristically remained as silent as Ralph and Florence.

The worst had just been confirmed. Paige and Walter had both been abducted.

In the meantime the screen changed again. The next picture showed something that filled them all with dread: a generously sized coffin - dimensioned to hold a plus sized person - or in this case, two normal size persons…

"Not good!" Happy groaned. None of them liked where this was going.

The next frame showed the empty van - followed by a picture of the coffin in a hole in the ground, a tube leading out of it and to an oxygen tank next to the hole. Someone had already dropped some soil onto he coffin, indicating it was in the process of being buried.

The disturbing picture changed back to script.

/You have until 15:00 to find them!/

The screen changed again, starting back to the first picture, showing an unconscious Walter in his kitchen.

"Okay, 15:00, that's 3 pm. This means we have 3 hours and 24 minutes to find them and dig them up." Sylvester said, his mind already reeling at the thought of being locked into a coffin and buried alive in it. He was not fond of tight spaces - and a coffin was the definition of a very tight, very scary space - especially if inhabited while still alive.

"Then let's see what clues we have been left with." Toby said and peered into the box. "What do we have here?"

He pulled out a vial with soil. Ralph immediately grabbed it from him and held it out to Florence.

"Florence, can you run the soil analysis for us? You do have some of the equipment necessary and you can do some more tests with the chemicals you have in your lab." The young genius pointed out. "If the soil is unique to a certain area, it can lead us to them."

"I'll get right to it!" Florence grabbed the vial and hurried out the door.

"Next we have an… obituary…" Toby gulped as he looked at it more closely. "And I think I know who is behind this." He said, sounding as if he had just taken a bite of Walter's fermented fish.

He handed the piece of paper over to Cabe, who cursed under his breath.

"Walter Patrick O'Brien, son of Sean and Luise O'Brien passed away at the age of 36. With an IQ of 197 he was of exceptional intelligence, unfortunately it did not keep him from stupid life decisions, such as hiring a useless waitress that in the end destroyed his life's work.

Paige Dineen, passed away at age 31, meeting her untimely demise because she took a place that was not hers to have. She should have stayed were she was." Cabe read aloud, the anger in his voice growing with every word.

Happy looked at the obituary and her eyebrows rose. "What are you, Collins? 13?" She muttered.

"I would take offence." Ralph informed her. "But then there are classmates in my school that would have written a similar text." His face remained passive, showing no sign if he took offence to what Collins had written about his mother.

There was no doubt about it - this had Mark Collins written all over it.

"Here is also a picture of a cemetery!" Ralph took the last object from the box.

"Ralph, go online - perhaps you can find the cemetery matching that picture - if we wait for Florence's soil analysis, we might loose too much time!" Happy decided.

Ralph handed Toby the picture, then pulled out his laptop, connected it to the garage's wifi and started typing.

o - o - o - o - o

Paige moved around on top of had been lying in silence for a while now and she was getting uncomfortable in her current position.

"Uhhh... Paige, what are you doing?" Walter asked.

As long as she had remained motionless, he had been able to ignore the physical aspect of her being so close to him, especially after two months of pining for her from afar. But now that she was shifting around, his attention was drawn to her again and it was starting to become embarrassing for him.

He was sure Paige was going to notice his body's literally growing interest soon. Had she been able to see him, she would have seen him blush furiously - especially as her hips settled exactly where he least wanted it in their current situation…

"I'm trying to get more conforta... oh!" Paige's voice pitched in surprise before she started chuckling.

Walter felt his cheeks burn even hotter with embarrassment, silently cursing his body for it's inappropriate timing.

"Don't laugh at me!" Walter grumbled.

"I'm sorry!" Paige placed a consoling kiss on his chin, then suddenly started to shake.

At first Walter thought she was laughing at his predicament, but when she suddenly started to sob, he finally recognised that she was crying and his own predicament was instantly forgotten.

"Paige?" Walter asked, worriedly. Was she starting to panic? "It's okay - the others will find us!" he wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back gently.

"No, NO!" Paige cried, "It's not okay! You shouldn't comfort me! How can you be so nice to me after I was so horrible to you! After what I said to you! You should hate me! You should hate being in here with me!" her fists pummelled his chest, but due to the lack of space there was no force behind it. "I'm such a horrible person!"

Walter continued to rub her back, worry creeping up inside him. They had only pretended to break up. He couldn't deny that the words she had chosen to hurl at him for their break-up scene had stung and had continued to hurt the following weeks, but her crying made him nervous. She either was putting on an exceptionally good act for their captor, or the whole ordeal was at least as psychologically taxing as it had been for him.

"No you are not!" he insisted. "You were hurt and your fears of being cheated on and abandoned took over and you lashed out. You said the things that would hurt me most, to save yourself from being hurt."

His fingers tapped out his real response.

/You do remember that we just pretended to break up, right?/ he was a bit confused. Paige's outbreak felt too real to just be for Collins' benefit.

/I know, it still hurt to say those awful things to you. I felt so horrible for saying them, even though they were only for show./ Paige was glad Walter was able to understand her rapid morse coding - if she had had to do it slowly, she would have had to cut herself short. There was so much she wanted to convey to him without Collins overhearing.

/I missed you so much!/ she added. /The breakup felt so real. I know we only pretended, but it felt so real. Seeing the pain in your eyes when I yelled those things at you. Not being able to take them back. I barely made it home before I threw up that night and I kept having nightmares of our breakup - only in my dreams it was a real breakup and I couldn't make it right again. You didn't want me anymore because of what I said!/

/I missed you, too./ Walter admitted. /And I would be lying if I claimed what you said did not hurt. It felt so real. I, too, had nightmares about it. The past few weeks haven't been good for me - but I guess Cabe already informed you about that. I am afraid I might have to take up Homeland's offer of seeing Dr. Rizzuto…/

Paige gently stroked his cheek to comfort him, then responded.

/Maybe we should both go!/

For their ruse for Collins, Paige asked "Have you been talking to Toby?"

"Uhhhh...!" Walter pretended to be unsure what to say, as if he didn't want to implicate the behaviourist for having had contact with him.

"It's okay Walter, I won't get mad at Toby - or you!" Paige smiled.

"Well, after that night when we broke up, Toby and Happy came back the next day and apologised for walking out. They didn't know how to handle the situation the previous night, but they came up with the idea of joining you and Sylvester to see if they could mend things between us."

That had been their pretence to allow Toby and Happy being messengers between the two groups. The couple had brought hand-written notes back and forth between the two parties after they deemed spoken words as well as electronic communication too dangerous.

Initially they had thought about total silence between the groups for the full three months, but then realised that that would be too suspicious, especially as Happy and Toby both didn't have as serious a reason to split with Walter as Sylvester and Paige.

Sylvester and Paige's reactions had already been extreme - they were afraid to give their plan away if they went too far.

"I wonder who else conspired with you." She mused. "Let me guess, Ralph was in on it, wasn't he?"

"Yes, Ralph figured out what Toby was trying to do and instead of ratting him out to you he demanded to be included. I'm really sorry!" Walter cringed. "I never meant to have Ralph go behind your back."

Of course Paige had known about Ralph's involvement. The boy had been putting on a great act for Collins' prying eyes and ears, once Paige had found out about the microphone hidden in one of her flower vases.

Instead of removing it, they had used it to put on their act for Collins.

It had been taxing to put on the role of angry ex-girlfriend for weeks on end - Cape had not been wrong with his warning when they had first discussed their plan.

"You know what?" Paige asked. "I don't care! Toby really helped me understand why I reacted the way I did and why I reacted so strongly. In fact, I had been planning to call you and ask you if you would be willing to talk to me. I have been putting it off each day, though, because I was afraid you wouldn't want to see me. But then I heard that Sylvester told Happy that he was going to see you and I thought I'd wait how that would turn out - that if you could mend things with Sylvester, then maybe there would be hope for us, too."

"I have been hoping for you to call every day." Walter admitted. "I am so sorry for the mistakes I made. I didn't think that me going to a lecture with Florence could spiral so out of control."

"Walter, it wasn't that you went with her on that lecture - if you had told me up front or right afterwards, it would not have been a problem. I would not have been pleased, but I would have forgiven you. But you kept it from me - that's what hurt me. That's what made me fear you were already starting to replace me with her."

Paige was glad that Walter had decided to tell her the truth - she knew Walter would recognise her words for confirmation that his confession two months ago had been the right course of action.

That they had to pretend for Collins didn't mean that she couldn't slip some truth into her words - and she knew Walter did the same. The whole team had gotten good at hiding real sentiments within the things they said to sell their ruse to Collins, using certain visual and tactile clues to inform the other party when they were being serious.

"I know that now. But I would never replace you with another woman." Walter said softly. "And I wished I had listened to Happy and Toby when they told me to tell you right away."

"We both made mistakes, Walter." Paige said. "And I'm not saying that everything is all good again right away - but I'd really like to be your girlfriend again. We'll still have a lot of things to work through, but I'd like to be with you again."

"AAAAAW! Isn't that sweet! The waitress is crawling back to you!" Collin's voice talked over Paige, his tone mocking. "You're not really falling for that sappy crap, are you?"

"SHUT UP!" Walter growled.

"Now that's not very polite, Walter!" Collins admonished, "And I just wanted to make you an offer. Don't worry, the waitress can't hear me right now. I am willing to get you out of the coffin. But you have to make a decision and prove to me that you stand by it." He paused for dramatic effect.

"What do you want?" Walter growled. Knowing Collins it was something devious.

"It's simple. You have to decide to leave that waitress and the team behind for good. And for proof, that's simple. You kill that stupid wench and I'll dig you up and we can head south together. It could be like old times, buddy. Just you and me and our projects. How you do it, is up to you. Strangle her, break her neck… Just kill her and this nightmare will be over…" Collins used a gentle tone that stood in strange contrast to the words he spoke.

"You know what, Collins?" Walter spat, blood rushing in his ears as anger gripped him. How dare Collins suggest he should harm Paige to save himself.

If he had been able to, he would have punched Collins - several times and and as hard as he could.

"You can shove your 'offer' up your ass! I'm done talking to you! I'm not spending my last hours listening to your insanity!"

Walter ripped the ear piece out of his ear and threw it to the foot end of the coffin. He padded around with his foot to try and squash it, but he couldn't locate it and had to content himself with having tossed it. It would have felt satisfying to destroy the little piece of technology, but the crunching sound would have only given him a fraction of the satisfaction he needed anyway.

"What did he want?" Paige asked, concerned by Walter's outbreak.

"He offered to get me out of here if I killed you." Walter was still seething.

Paige gasped in shock at what she heard. For a split second her blood ran cold - but then she instantly remembered the reaction Walter had shown to that suggestion. Of course she knew Walter would never harm her to save his own life.

Paige squeezed Walter's shoulder with her hand and brought her lips close to his ears, knowing that Collins would still hear her through her ear piece, but not caring about it. But whispering the words felt more intimate to her.

"I love you Walter!" She whispered close to his ear and she could feel him shudder under her.

He shifted as he brought his lips close to her ear, mimicking her. "I love you, too!"

Then Walter remembered one of the things Paige had yelled at him the night she had walked out of the garage.

"I don't need you to stimulate my brain - everything else around me already does. Scorpion, Ralph, my personal projects,..." he paused for a moment, sorting the words he wanted to say, "But you are stimulating my heart in a way that no one has ever done before - you have made me feel emotions I was convinced to never feel because I was disputing their very existence. But you taught me that they exist - not by submitting scientific evidence, but simply by existing - by being you and showing me. No one has ever been able to do that and no one ever will."

/That's the truth!/ Walter tapped on her back. /I'm not making this up for Collins!/

Paige exhaled deeply at Walter's words, oblivious to having held her breath in the first place the moment Walter had started to talk about her biggest concern about her relationship, about not being enough for Walter, to loose his interest by not being enough for his constantly active mind.

Instead of giving him a verbal answer Paige moved her head away from his ear and pressed her lips on his, her tongue slipping out and demanding entry with a gentle yet insistent push against his closed lips.

Walter eagerly parted his lips, returning the affection, neither of them willing to end the kiss first - if these were their last hours, they wanted to make the most of them.

o - o - o - o - o - o

Unbeknownst to them, Collins was silently fuming with rage that Walter had not only decided in favor of Paige's continued existence, but also effectively ended communication between them.

He contemplated playing his mind games on Paige, but decided against it for the moment. The danger of her ending communication with him in the same way was too high. If she threw away her ear piece as well, Collins would loose his way of communication with them. Talking to them was no fun if they couldn't hear him. Therefore he had to exert some self-control and keep his mind games to himself - for the moment.

Huffing angrily, Collins decided to seek his entertainment elsewhere - he had left cameras in the garage when he had taken Walter and the motion sensors he had installed with them had already alerted him to movement there. It was time to check in how far those of lesser intelligence than his own had come with the clues he had left them.

He chuckled as he saw that the boy - Ralph - had taken on the lead in the investigation. Of course! The boy had the highest IQ - higher even than Walter's - but unfortunately tainted by his mother's pesky EQ - she had corrupted that young genius even worse than Walter.

She was going to pay for it now - along with Walter for being stupid enough to let himself be corrupted by her. The boy couldn't help it - but Walter should have known better.

o - o - o - o - o


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"I have located the cemetery in the photo!" Ralph announced after what felt to Cabe like an eternity, but had in reality had not even been half an hour.

"I have adapted Walter's photoshop based facial recognition program to check for visual similarities in landmarks and buildings, ran it against online images of cemeteries and narrowed it down to seven possible locations. I have compared those seven to the photo manually and found a match. I have forwarded the coordinates to your phones."

"Well done, kid!" Cabe praised the boy as he checked the coordinates on his phone. "But wouldn't it have been easier to use an already existing programm?"

"No, they are not good enough for what I needed and Walter had already done the difficult part of the coding on his program, I only needed to change the parameters for the visual comparison from human faces to landmarks and buildings." Ralph shrugged.

Cabe was not happy about the location. The cemetery was located way too far Southeast to reach in time by car. Even by helicopter it would be a tight schedule.

They would have mere minutes left to get to Paige and Walter once they landed.

"Okay, kids, let's hustle! Get your gear together, I'm calling Homeland. We're going to need a chopper."

Happy, Toby and Sylvester immediately sprang into action, each one heading to their work spaces which had been neglected the past few weeks and collected their things for the rescue mission, hoping it would not turn into a recovery mission.

Cabe noted the lack of banter and quips. They had been expecting Collins to rear his ugly head for the past weeks, but none of them had foreseen him doing it in such a volatile way.

They had expected him to contact Walter, maybe trying to work his mind games on him to get him to team up with him now that he had lost his team - or trying to get Walter to not reconcile with them - but abduction and possible killing had not been what they had thought would happen.

Until now Collins had always tried to appeal to Walter's intellect, tried to lure him back to him and to the rabbit hole. They collectively had assumed he would pounce on their split to try once more to get Walter back on his side.

As he dialled a certain number in his cell phone, Cabe's eyes fell on Scorpion's behaviorist. His unusual silence was telling. Toby was too worried to annoy them with their usual puns.

Toby had always known that Collins was a sociopath and a grade A asshole - but he had never thought he would endanger Walter's live. He had never before taken to violence like that - not even when Toby had been at his mercy.

Collins even had only faked torturing Toby when he could have done the real thing. Always preferred playing his mind games over physical harm.

He wondered when Collins had moved on from that to burying people alive.

Had he always been like that and back then only played a role in front of them or had he finally gone over the deep end?

Toby had more than once claimed the couldn't properly read Walter - but compared to Collins, Walter was an open book. It bothered Toby extremely that he seemed to have misjudged Collins to such an extent.

Trying to figure out Walter had always had the quality of a challenge, of a puzzle Toby wanted to finally solve - but not being able to figure out Collins was a serious problem.

So serious it could actually cost part of their cyclone.

And if that happened, the rest of that cyclone would not last. Toby knew it would break Sylvester and Cabe if they lost the man they considered their brother and son. Ralph would loose not only his mentor, but more importantly his mother. Happy and Toby would loose their friends.

Toby was good at predicting people's reactions. Before his inner eye he could already see how each of them would be affected if today was the day that Scorpion failed.

The team would break. Some of them worse than others - but none of them would ever recover from it.

They barely had time to get to where Collins held their friends. If there was only a little delay, Walter and Paige would be in serious danger of hypoxia and the aftereffects of being too long without oxygen - not to mention death by asphyxiation.

All quips that had crossed his mind since learning about Walter and Paige's abduction had died on his tongue before they could make it out of his mouth.

As the team's behaviourist, he felt responsible for not seeing this one coming.

They had been running out of time the moment they had been given the clues.

Collins had set them a horribly tight deadline. He could have given them the address to the cemetery and it would still be almost impossible to get to them in time - Toby had no doubt that Collins had at least one more trick up his sleeve.

Just like he had put up that maze of string when he had had Toby.

Toby doubted Collins wanted to give them a fair chance to rescue their friends. He wanted to see them suffer - that much had been clear from what Florence had told them about Collins when she had confessed her real reason for moving in next door to them weeks ago.

o - o - o - o - o - o

_They had been shocked when Florence had confessed her involvement with Collins. _

_He had found her when she had been at her lowest, after loosing her company to her alleged friends and peers. She had been easy prey for his mind games, making her believe he was a kindred spirit, that Walter and the rest of Scorpion had wronged him in a similar way as she had been wronged, cast him out of his circle of peers._

_But working with them had shown her the truth about her intended targets. The things she had learned about the threat Collins posed had made her realise her misconception about the man himself. _

_Florence was not stupid - and so she had kept the pretence of still working for Collins up in front of the man - if he was as dangerous as he seemed, it would not do to antagonise him before she had secured herself the help of the team. _

_IF that help would be given to her after confessing her involvement with their greatest enemy had still had to be seen when she made her decision. _

_At first she had thought about just walking away - about packing up her lab, terminating her lease and just leaving. But she didn't want to loose the people she slowly started to see as friends without trying._

_After they had shared the victory over the baseball game won against Homeland's finest bullies, Florence had finally felt confident enough in their beginning friendship to request Cabe and Walter to inconspicuously organise a room that was secure against Collins' abilities to have his ears everywhere. _

_Then she had again mustered up all her courage - and told them the truth._

_Of course the team had been upset about what she confessed to them - and Toby had to physically keep Happy from attacking her, catching the fiery mechanic mid-attack — but after she had finished her story and they all had had a moment to process, Paige had been the first one speaking up for her and convincing the others to not kick her out of their group._

_Walter had been quick to back up his girlfriend. Not only because he felt obligated to back his girlfriend up to secure her continued infatuation with him, but also because he saw the possibility to use her by now only pretended alliance with Collins for their benefit. _

_And Florence had come through. She had managed to sell accompanying Walter to the lecture and the problems that had caused for the genius up to the alleged break-up of the team as her actively taking a hand in making Walter suffer for Collins to get his revenge. _

_Her vivid recount of the events he had only been able to overhear over the microphones hidden throughout the garage had been the backing that had helped sell their charade to Collins. _

_In the process, Sylvester had fallen even more for Florence. _

_He had never thought he'd find someone else after Megan, but Florence was special, though in a completely different way than Megan had been._

_It had pained them both that they were not able to act on their mutual attraction as long as Collins was free and they needed to lure him out - but Florence had carefully brought up the idea that she could do further harm by breaking apart the newly formed Centipede Partners by going after Sylvester, setting up a possibility for them to see each other before Collins was caught. It would have been better than nothing._

_Collins had been gleeful about Walter and Paige's break-up - but he had strongly disliked the fact that Paige had the team of geniuses around her. He wanted to see her put into the place she belonged in in his opinion - having the team of geniuses flock around her did not do._

_Florence's suggestion fell on interested ears. Collins could very well imagine how quickly it would split up that new version of the team if the very woman who had taken Walter from her would now set her sights on Sylvester. _

_But before she could actually act out that new twist, the anniversary of Megan's passing had come up and Sylvester had unexpectedly but expertly sped up their schedule. _

_o - o - o - o - o - o_

Collins grinned as he looked at his watch.

Time had been creeping by for him since the team had left the garage en route to the airfield that held that helicopter Gallo had requested from Homeland.

Once they had left the garage, Collins had lost his ears on them. He had managed to bug the garage and also Centipede Partner's headquarters, as well as their living quarters, but he had not gotten his hands on their cell phones as they had always had them with them.

And here on the cemetery he also only had limited access to his own devices anyway.

His wait was almost over - not long until they would arrive and the boring time of having to wait for them would be over.

Even by helicopter, their time would be almost up by the time they landed, though.

And then they still had to overcome one last obstacle before they could dig the damn lovebirds up.

This was going to be exciting - and a very close call. Seeing them loose so close to the goal would be exhilarating - seeing their despair as they realised that all their efforts had been for nothing.

It was something for Collins to look forward to - after all once hypoxia set in, Walter and Paige would no longer be fun to mess with - though Walter already was no fun anymore - he had removed the ear piece Collins had planted in his ear, effectively ending the communication between them, which had been the reason for Collins' boredom during the wait for the team.

Without Walter to talk to, he only had Paige left - and he had to make this one count - after all he would probably only get one shot at her before she, too, would remove her ear piece.

He could tell that she had not yet disposed of it by the closeness of her voice. He would have heard the difference if the ear piece had been further away from her mouth.

Those two were making up down there and probably kissing.

Collins almost gagged at the thought. Why someone would want to let another human's tongue into their own mouth was beyond him.

He had never thought that uncomfortable-with-touch Walter O'Brien would want something like that, let alone engage willingly and enthusiastically in it - that dumb normal had really messed up a perfectly good low EQ genius.

Should she survive this little adventure, Collins would have to make sure she paid for it.

Following that line of thought, a malicious grin suddenly formed on Collins lips.

There was a topic he could bring up that would squash her interest in exchanging saliva with Walter and make her cry.

And depending on Walter's reaction to the change of tune, things might get a bit more interesting for him again.

"Paige," he started, his voice deceptively neutral. "I am sure you will be very proud to hear that your boy has been able to locate the cemetery on which I have buried you and Walter. He is currently leading the others to our location," He paused for dramatic effect.

"What do you want, Collins?" He heard Paige's weary voice.

Time to rip off the band-aid. Collins liked ripping them off with force…

"Imagine how he will feel when he and the team arrive and realise they are too late. Do you think they will dig your dead bodies up while he is watching?" He paused again.

"Can you imagine what it will do to his young psyche if he sees his dear mother and mentor dead in their open coffin?"

His grin widened as he heard the inarticulate scream that followed his words, quickly replaced by sobs and what sounded like thrashing inside an enclosed space, almost drowning out Walter's muffled questions what Collins had told her.

o - o - o - o - o - o

* * *

**Authors note:**

_**This time the chapter is a little bit shorter than the previous two - initially it was longer than each - so I decided to split Chapter 3 up and make it Chapter 3 and 4 instead - luckily I find a nice spot where to split it for dramatic effect. **_

_**To make up for it, Chapter 4 will be posted quicker than the previous chapters as I am almost done with editing and what feels like the 50 times I reread it to present you with something readable… **_


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Paige had no concept of how long they had been lying in the dark now. How much of their six hours had already passed - she was no fool - she had heard Collins' phrasing - the six hours had started when they had been put into the coffin, not when they had woken up. With Collins one had to weigh every single word he said.

She was starting to feel light-headed, but couldn't tell if it was because their oxygen supply was starting to run out, or if it was because she was spending so much time kissing Walter, unwilling to end each kiss until she had no choice but to come up for air.

She had lost herself in the sensation of finally being able to kiss the love of her life again - and had done so in abundance, both of them not willing to waste any of their remaining time.

If this was it - if help would not come, they wanted to make up for the weeks they had lost.

Collins had remained oddly silent for an extended amount of time now - Paige was not sure if he simply had nothing to say to her at the moment, or if he was biding his time to deliver a verbal blow to her.

Right now, she didn't care. All they could do in their current position was wait for their rescue.

They had tried to force the coffin open, but no matter how they pushed against the lid and the sides or punched against them - the coffin did not budge one bit. With the possible weight of the soil above them, Walter had finally deemed their attempts too dangerous. If they managed to compromise the lid, it might cave in and the coffin would fill with soil - and depending on how deep Collins had buried them, that would be certain death.

Neither of them had tried bargaining or begging Collins to let them out.

Without having to discuss it, this was the one option they would not explore. Collins wouldn't let them out anyway. He would gloat at them and revel in having them beg - and then let them die anyway.

He had proven often enough that he had no sympathy for others.

Paige kept telling herself that Scorpion didn't fail, that Scorpion saved everyone - she just hoped that included themselves.

Though they both knew their break-up had only been for show, Paige still felt the need to apologise for those awful words, even though they had both known they were not true.

But she had seen the look of hurt in Walter's eyes that night.

Had seen how much the things she had chosen to hurl at him had hurt him despite being only for Collin's benefit because they were the exact things that would hurt him the most if she truly meant them.

For that reason she continued to mumble her apologies to him in between kisses, ignoring his assurances that she had nothing to be sorry for and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

If she was going to leave this mortal plain, this was how she wanted to go out.

Not by asphyxiation, but in the arms of the love of her life - though it pained her that in this case it meant that her beloved would die as well.

Kissing Walter and whispering words of love and reassurance to him was so much more preferable to listening to Collins' mind-games.

Whatever the reason for the sociopath's silence was, Paige was thankful for it. She didn't want the last hours of her live being spent listening to Collin's voice - she wanted to spend it listening to Walter.

To his voice, to the little sounds he sometimes made when she kissed him - a mix of a moan and hum low in his throat, a sound of contentment that Paige only ever had heard from him when she was kissing him.

A sound she suspected only she got to get out of him - which made the sound even sweeter to her.

"Paige," Collins impassive voice sounded in her ear and Paige groaned. Had she summoned him to speak by wondering why he was silent? Perhaps he would leave her alone if she just didn't react.

Instead she tapped a short sign on Walter's chest that Collins had started to speak to her.

"I am sure you will be very proud to hear that your boy has been able to locate the cemetery on which I have buried you and Walter. He is currently leading the others to our location," Collins paused for dramatic effect and Paige gritted her teeth.

Of course he would find the one thing that would make her engage.

"What do you want, Collins?" She asked against her better judgement. She vowed to herself to not let him play her.

"Imagine how he will feel when he and the team arrive here and realise they are too late. Do you think they will dig your dead bodies up while he is watching? Can you imagine what it will do to his young psyche if he sees his dear mother and mentor dead in their open coffin?"

Paige froze as unsolicited images rose before her inner eyes.

Her little boy standing over a hole in the ground, staring in horror into the open coffin, staring directly at Walter and her - seeing their dead faces…

Paige had only seen a dead person up close twice in her life - one had been her grandfather when she had been a little girl, the other her father when she had been older.

Both instances had followed her in her sleep, causing her nightmares. But neither times had had the added horror of having tried to save her family from being ruthlessly murdered - and failing at the last minute.

She couldn't even begin to fathom what this would do to her son. To her genius son, whose mind worked so different from her own that she had a hard time understanding how his mind worked in normal everyday situations.

His mind was a lot like Walter's. Even though her boyfriend didn't like to go into detail about his memories and emotions about what happened in Bagdad, she knew it had traumatised him so badly, he had not only cut ties with his surrogate father for 16 years, but it haunted his dreams to this day. Not to mention the serious trust issues he still was battling, even though there were now people in his life whom he trusted.

And while Bagdad had involved 2000 people being killed, Walter had not known any of those people personally.

Ralph would have to face the death of the two most important people in his live.

Would have to live with the feeling that he failed them - no matter how any of this was not his fault. Once the thought had installed itself into his young brain, no one would be able to ever convince him fully that he had not failed them. That thought would affect the rest of his live.

A scream tore out of her throat.

She didn't even realise that she was thrashing about on top of Walter, her arms flailing around aimlessly as she needed to hit something - but the only things that were reachable were Walter and the sides of the coffin.

Walter's arms tightened around her as he tried to comfort her, switching between words of comfort and questions about what Collins had said.

Just as soon as she had started to thrash, the fight went out of her and she slumped against Walter's chest, tears streaming down her face.

"How do you think your boy would…" Collins word's suddenly cut off, instead she heard Walter's angry voice.

"Leave her alone, Collins!" Walter's voice was filled with rage.

He shook with anger beneath Paige and it cost him all his self-control to refrain from yelling.

"As soon as I get out of here, I will kill you!" He threatened, before he threw the ear piece towards the foot end of the coffin, this time not even bothering to try to stomp it to pieces - instead concentrating his energy on getting a grip on his own emotions so he could comfort Paige.

He still didn't know what Collins had told Paige, but it had to be bad. Seeing her react with such intensity meant it had to do with either himself or Ralph. He himself was down here with her, so that left Ralph.

His blood ran cold at the thought. Had Collins harmed Ralph?

Up until this moment, Walter had not been sure if he would be able to go through with his threat to kill Collins if he got out of the coffin - though Collins would at least be in need of an extended hospital stay when Walter was through with him - but if he had harmed Ralph, all bets were off.

He WOULD kill Collins!

"He told me I should imagine how Ralph would feel when they dig us up and realise they have been too late." Paige suddenly whispered against his chest, her voice barely a whisper.

Walter exhaled sharply. So Collins had not hurt Ralph - yet.

But the scenario Paige had just described would traumatise Ralph deeply. He could understand that it had upset her - to imagine the trauma her child would go through at the sight. But Walter was confident that Cabe would have the common sense to not let Ralph see them like that.

"And then I… I couldn't help it, but the image was just there in my mind." Paige continued, sniffling softly as the tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

"That won't happen!" Walter told her, trying to sound more confident than he actually felt.

Time was running out on them.

"The team will save us!" He sighed. "And even… even if not. Cabe will make sure that Ralph will not see us like that. But they will save us! They always come through for us! Remember: Scorpion never fails. We save everyone!"

"We save everyone!" Paige repeated his words, clinging to that hope.

"We will get out of here - and then we will get our lives back. Maybe you would like to move into the garage." Walter tried to distract her. "I will make room for you in the loft and we can build a room for Ralph. Ralph mentioned he'd like to have us build him his own room between the ramp and the stairs on the ground floor if you two ever moved in." Walter continued.

The thought of Paige possibly moving in had already appealed to him months ago when Ralph had brought it up in a conversation they had shared without Paige in earshot. But when he had mentioned it to her, she had insisted on not being ready to give up her condo yet, ignoring Walter's reasoning that it would be a lot more efficient, both in terms of travel time to and from work and for them to spend more time together.

"Seriously? Ralph and you discussed this already?" Paige asked, successfully distracted from her dark thoughts. She knew what Walter was doing. Distracting her from their impending demise by making plans for the future they both hoped they would still have.

"Yes, He already has very detailed plans for his room and an adjoining work space."

Paige laughed softly. "He'd never leave the garage if he had his say."

o - o - o - o - o - o

Collins glanced at his watch and made a quick calculation. The additional oxygen supply would soon run out and with two people breathing in the confined space of the coffin, hypoxia would quickly set in.

They would not suffer from hypoxia for long before they would suffocate.

Collins shrugged, he had not managed to get Walter to see reason, the man had told him to shut up instead of listening to him - so the only reasonable thing to do was to put the poor fool out of his misery - in a way he was doing Walter a favor - he had reunited him with that normal he was so fond of and allowed him to rest in peace together with her.

Not that Collins subscribed to such sentimentalities - but he supposed with his now messed up EQ, Walter would probably subscribe to it. He had started to believe in such stupid concepts as love after all - that normal had truly messed up Walter beyond repair.

He briefly regretted that he could not inform them how much of their 6 hours of air supply they had already slept away by the time they woke up - but he figured Walter had enough IQ left in his messed up brain to recognise the onset of hypoxia and calculate back to the actual time they had had at their disposal - if he really wanted to know. Perhaps he didn't even care and rather kept kissing that stupid waitress instead.

Collins couldn't care less anymore. Walter had once again chosen. He rather died with that normal instead of listening to him.

Walter had made his choice… Well, he wouldn't have to live with the consequences for long.

And Collins couldn't wait to see the reactions of the rest of that motley crew when they realised they were too late. That would destroy them - and their new-founded team.

Collins hadn't been allowed to be a part of Scorpion - so Scorpion had to be destroyed - in any incarnation.

o - o - o - o - o - o

Sylvester sat in the helicopter, his eyes tightly squeezed shut.

He had been relatively well during the flight itself, while they had been flying more or less level towards their destination, but now they were zoning in on their destination and their pilot was directing the helicopter in a tight circle over the area to canvas for a good landing spot and also to give the team a good view of where they were headed.

Sylvester hated flying - he hated it with a passion as the mere thought of crashing made his anxieties spike to record heights. It didn't matter that they had already crashed with a helicopter once.

It actually made it worse, because now he knew exactly how it felt - and it had exceeded his expectations not in a good way. Having survived the incident had not helped his anxieties one bit.

But he also knew he had to fly right now and would hold it together for Walter and Paige.

He had overcome his anxieties time and time again for his chosen family and would continue to do so - but the emotions where still there, still made his blood run cold and his breath catch in his throat, while his heart beat faster and faster as if it was speeding up to implode inside his chest.

No matter how often he managed to push through his emotions and their physical manifestations within his body, it was not getting easier by repetition.

„Not good!" Sylvester's eyes snapped open at Happy's trademark exclamation that usually indicated that the problem they needed to solve had just become at least 300% more complicated.

„Really not good!" Sylvester groaned. The cemetery was huge - but that alone was not the problem - the problem was that at each of the four sides of the cemetery were fresh fields of graves - each field held 25 freshly filled in graves - each of them had an oxygen tank leading into them.

At first glance, each field looked exactly the same.

„How are we supposed to find the right grave?" Cabe asked, his voice trembling slightly.

Paige and Walter had less than ten minutes of air left - unless they had panicked and used their air supply up too quickly.

„Florence?" Happy called out for the chemist though the comm. „Now would be the right time for your soil analysis…"

Cabe only listened half-heartedly as Florence voice rang over the comms, giving them a detailed list of the components of the soil.

Cabe quickly lost track of all the scientific terms she was using - a word here or there sounded half-way familiar and he caught the gist of it - but most of it went over his head.

But that was not his job - the geniuses with him knew exactly what Florence was talking about - and even before the helicopter touched down, three of the four fields had been ruled out - apparently the soil on the northern field, bordering on a small creek was saturated by water from that very creek that half a century ago had carried a chemical from a nearby company and was still traceable in the soil up to this day.

For the same reason Sylvester calculated the probability of the grave being in the last row of fresh graves closest to the river the highest, as that area had been exposed to the river's water the most, while the saturation percentage would lessen the farther inland the graves lay.

Unfortunately that still left them with seven graves.

Seven graves that lay directly next to each other parallel to the river - so they all had the same probability to be the one they looked for.

Seven graves to dig up… as they jumped out of the helicopter, Cabe's blood rushed in his ears.

Seven graves to dig up - and the air for Paige and Walter would run out in the next two minutes.

Seven graves to dig up - and only a few short minutes before the lack of oxygen would cause brain damage - or worse - his son and Paige would be dead.

As they reached the row Sylvester had indicated, the team stopped short. The seven graves looked exactly the same - nothing set one apart from the others - even down to the seven identical empty oxygen tanks hooked up to each grave and four shovels stuck in the earth next to each of them as if to taunt them.

"We need to start digging!" Ralph urged, his eyes wide with worry. "Their air just ran out!" He added over the unwelcome beeping of Cabe's wrist watch, that he had set to 3 pm sharp back in the garage.

"Which one?" Cabe asked. "Which one do we dig up?" His face grew pale and this heart started to pound faster with stress as he looked at the geniuses - and realised that none of them had any idea how to solve this. Which one to pick and hope that they dug fast enough to still save their friends.

They had seven options - and nothing set any of them apart, nothing to indicate it might be the best choice.

And even if each of them picked a grave - if Collins had buried them six feet under, one person digging per grave would be too slow and they would still have to choose five out of seven graves.

"All of them!" A voice spoke up to his right. "Sir!" The voice added as an afterthought.

The team spun around and looked at a Homeland Swat team - Cabe recognised the leader - they had worked with that team before - and they had worked well together.

"Good! Let's hustle then!" Cabe called out, new hope blossoming in his chest as he dove for the grave closest to him. Toby and Ralph joined him, while Happy and Silvester took the next grave, aided by a female Homeland agent.

The rest of the squad split up in pairs of four on the other five graves, the men and women digging as fast as they could.

o - o - o - o - o - o

A few minutes earlier:

Walter noticed that he became light headed and immediately recognised the onset of hypoxia.

A short calculation, coming to him automatically, provided him with the information that they only had a few short minutes left.

So that was it then. A few more breaths, perhaps a short hallucination, the panic when their lungs would no longer draw in breathable air - then it would be over.

Sadness came over him.

He would have liked to have more time.

More time to show and tell Paige how much he loved her. How sorry he was for them to be in this situation - he still felt responsible for the problem that Collins was - if he had submitted him to an institution earlier, perhaps he could have been properly helped…

To show Paige that he could be a better boyfriend than he had been so far - he was well aware that there were shortcomings in his performance up to now. He knew he could do better - if he only had the time to prove it…

Maybe even start a family - well, they already were a complete family - Paige, Ralph and him - but perhaps moving in together - maybe…

"Paige?" He mumbled.

"Yes, Walter?" Paige mumbled back tiredly. She, too, noticed the increased light-headedness.

"We only have a few minutes left. There is so much I would have liked to tell you - to show you…" he trailed off.

"Shhhh!" Paige said softly. "I know! Just hold me!"

He felt her fingers on his shirt, felt her opening the top four buttons.

"What are you doing?"

"I want your heartbeat to be the last thing I hear." She murmured, laying her head down on top of his chest, pressing her right ear over his heart. "Just in case the others don't get to us in time."

"Mmhmm." Walter grunted. He would have liked to tell her that he was sure they would get them out in time. That Scorpion saved everyone.

But that would have been a lie.

They weren't even a handful of minutes away from death - he didn't have the hope they would find them in time anymore.

"I love you!" Walter murmured, lacing the fingers of both of his hands with hers.

"I love you, too!" Paige smiled softly, applying soft pressure with her fingers against his.

They grew silent as they waited for the end, just holding on to each other as breathing started to become harder.

o - o - o - o - o - o

**Authors note:**

**Two chapters in one weekend… and I couldn't resist another cliffhanger - but not to worry, we'll get there soon... **


	5. Chapter 5

"We found something!"

The yell came from the middle of the row.

Cabe's head shot up from the grave he was digging in - they had no idea how deep Collins had buried them - or if there really was a coffin in each grave.

There was a split moment during which he thought about checking the grave the yell had come from - but what if they had dug up the wrong coffin and he wasted time checking on them while Walter and Paige suffocated in the coffin beneath him?

His musings became moot as the agents forced the coffin they had found open and more yelling followed.

"We've got them!" One of the voices yelled.

"We need the paramedics!" A second voice yelled.

In an instant Cabe was out of the hole he had been digging and hovered near the grave as four paramedics rushed towards the grave. He tried to see what was going on without being in the way. As he held his breath, he barely noticed the others lining up next to him, the whole group staring at the scene before them, Ralph and Sylvester clinging to each other for moral support, while Toby and Happy clasped their hands, trying to ground each other for what was to come.

They watched as first Paige was lifted out of the grave and two of the paramedics that had been on stand-by descended on her, while the other two jumped into he grave and started to work on Walter.

Cabe barely heard what they were saying, blood was rushing in his ears again and his own heart beat seemed to be unbearably loud. He could only make out bits and pieces as he helplessly watched the paramedics start their work on his son and Paige

Suddenly he heard them say that Walter's heart had stopped - and for a long moment Cabe didn't hear or see anything - his mind just went blank.

His son's heart had stopped.

Walter was dead…

Cabe felt as if his own heart had stopped, though his heartbeat was loud as thunder in his ears at the same time.

o - o - o - o - o - o

When Cabe snapped back to reality, Sylvester was shaking him.

"He's alive! Walter is alive!"

The meaning of the words slowly made it into Cabe's mind and he blinked. As his senses fully tunes in again, he could hear the paramedics talking about Walter being responsive to being resuscitated - and that they were about to begin prepping him for transport to a hospital.

Paige had already been put on a stretcher and was being loaded into one of the two waiting helicopters.

Cabe freed himself from Sylvester's hold and stumbled towards the grave, trying to peer down and catch a glimpse of Walter, trying to get visual confirmation of what he had just heard.

Behind him, Ralph threw himself at Sylvester, seeking comfort from the fellow genius he felt the strongest bond with after Walter. The boy was relieved to hear that his mother and mentor were going to live. But he still needed a hug and Sylvester needed one, too. The older genius wrapped his arms around Ralph.

"They're alive! They are alive, Ralph." He repeated over and over again as the thirteen year old clung to him silently.

In the meantime Happy had rounded the grave and noticed something within the coffin.

"There's an ear piece." She growled. "That asshole wasn't content on just burying them - he wanted to listen and also to talk to them."

They all knew what that meant. Collins had probably tried to mess with their heads. They could only hope that he had not managed to completely mess them up - scarring them mentally.

Collins' mind games were bad enough - but Collins' mind games while buried alive, lying in the dark and not knowing if they would survive, while their air supply ran out….

Happy forcefully cut the thought off. She was already in serious need of something to punch or kick. Or someone.

"That also means he is most likely nearby!" Toby pointed out. "While the ear pieces can work long distance, he would have chosen a short range communication to avoid detection. And also to be able to watch us and revel in us failing."

And they would have failed if Homeland had not dispatched agents to help them dig their friends up.

The team as well as the agents nearby immediately looked around until their eyes fell onto the mausoleum sitting in the center of the cemetery - despite the cemetery's size the only building around.

Cabe barked out an order to the agents. They immediately grouped around Cabe, their weapons drawn before they fanned out and closed in on the mausoleum, surrounding it.

They had their orders. Collins was to be apprehended at all costs. Dead or alive.

Just as Cabe wanted to give the order to storm the building, a car motor started up on the parking lot outside the cemetery, but immediately died down again. The sound repeated again - then a second time.

Cabe bit down a curse and ran towards the parking lot, half of the agents heading after him as the rest still surrounded the mausoleum, just in case the noise from the parking lot was a distraction and Collins still inside the building.

Sylvester stayed back with Ralph and Toby, who felt he was of more use to his two friends than the swat team.

Happy ran after Cabe, confident that the noise had indeed been Collins trying to run like the damn coward he was.

The curse Cabe had been holding back did fly from his lips as he reached the parking lot a moment after the motor successfully roared to live, followed by the sound of flying gravel as a small blue car lurched past him, picking up speed as it headed towards the exit of the parking lot.

He was sure he recognized Collins bearded face as the car passed him.

He brought up his gun and fired three rounds, but the car still sped away from him. Anger and frustration broke free of him in form of an inarticulate yell.

Happy stopped short behind Cabe, watching him shoot at the car hightailing it off the parking lot.

Her face darkened with frustration as the car rounded the corner and vanished out of side.

She, too, let out a scream as her frustration needed an outlet, but there was nothing else she could let her frustration out on except for some bushes and gravel covering the parking lot.

They both jumped as the sound of two heavy metal object crashing into each other rang out from the road, followed by a car horn starting and continuing to blare.

The noises came from just beyond the parking lot and out of sight - Happy and Cabe broke into a run, followed by the agents.

As they rounded the corner, Cabe could hardly believe his eyes and wondered if there was indeed a god and if that god had finally gotten fed up with Mark Collins.

Collins might have gotten away - had he not been in such a hurry to get as much distance between himself and the cemetery.

Even his genius IQ did not save Collins from the perils of countryside traffic - on this day in form of a huge green John Deere tractor that had been coming up the narrow road around the corner, just as Collins sped off.

Collins had hit the heavy machine head on. The impact had set off the car's airbag and the hood had folded in on itself.

The Homeland agents quickly surrounded the car, their weapons drawn and pointing into the car as the agents waited for Cabe to step up to the driver side to arrest Collins.

An arrest that would never be made.

o - o - o - o - o - o

The car's airbag had ejected - but at the speed Collins had been going and the large object he had slammed his car into, the airbag had not only not been of any help, it had caused his demise.

The odd angle at which Collins' head hung to one side made it clear that the man could no longer be alive.

The lifeless eyes told Cabe the rest.

Relief washed over Cabe Gallo. It was over. It was finally over. Mark Collins would never again pose a threat to his family.

Something that would have always dangled over their heads, no matter how deep they would have buried Colins in a prison. The danger of him somehow getting out and coming after them would have always been there. That rat had been damn resourceful.

Cabe couldn't bring himself to feel any sympathy for the man.

He had brought his own demise onto him himself.

He should have just ran to Mexico to never be heard of again, but he had not been able to leave well enough alone and had to keep coming after them. Had tried to kill Walter and Paige.

Now they would finally have the closure they needed.

Cabe looked at Colins with cold eyes one last time, then turned around and walked away. He needed to check on his kids, make sure they were okay.

There were enough agents around to clean up this mess. They were already checking on the farmer who had driven the tractor - the man was shocked, but otherwise unharmed by the accident.

As Cabe walked away, he pulled out his phone and hit speed dial.

"Katherine!" He greeted as the call connected. "It's over!"

o - o - o - o - o - o

Happy had arrived at the site of the accident at the same time as Cabe and she, too, had immediately recognised that Collins was dead.

Relief washed over her at the sight, followed by what could only be described as a weight lifting off of her shoulders.

They were free. They were finally free of Collins hiding somewhere and plotting on how to make their life miserable.

Now they could finally be a cyclone again and add to it.

Toby and herself had been trying to get pregnant and in the end decided to adopt - but as long as Collins had been free there had always been the fear that he might do something that endangered their family.

What if he would have done something and their child would have lost his parents…

Happy shuddered at the thought of how Ralph must have felt until they had found Walter and Paige.

Her steps quickened as she picked up pace to return to the others - to bring them the news that Collins had finally received what he deserved, what he had wanted to do to Paige and Walter.

Part of her was angry she had not been able to punch him. She would have loved to drive her fist into his face, breaking his nose, making him bleed for what he had done.

But in a way it was poetic justice. He had taken her friends and buried them, chosing to kill them by leaving them underground, gloating at them from a safe distance.

He had attacked like a coward - and he had died like a coward, running from them when his plan had not worked out.

Just as she reached the entrance to the cemetery, Cabe caught up with her and fell into step with her.

They shared a glance at each other and Cabe nodded curtly at her, no words necessary between the former roomies.

Collins was gone and none of them had had to get their hands dirty for it to happen.

Now they could all finally move forward.

Toby and Happy with their adoption plans.

Sylvester and Florence could freely explore what was developing between them without having to put on an act.

Walter, Paige and Ralph could finally become a little family the direction towards they had been going when Paige and Walter had finally gotten their heads out of their asses and confessed their love for each other while both of them had their faculties together at the same time..

They all could be together again.

Their cyclone could be together again and grow.

o - o - o -o - o - o - o

Together the uneven pair reached the mausoleum next to the northern field of the cemetery.

The agents that had remained behind on the cemetery were buzzing in and out of the mausoleum securing evidence they had found inside the small building.

Collins had indeed been shacking up inside of it. In his hurry to get away he had only taken his laptop, but left the rest of his stuff behind. Cabe and Happy had not been paying attention to any equipment Collins might have had in his car - but the set up in the mausoleum indicated that the empty spot n the midst of the cables and small devices the man had left behind had been occupied by a laptop.

It would only take one call to Cooper and every bit of technology they found here and in Collins' car would be handed over to Scorpion for further analysis. Who knew what they would find on his devises. Perhaps they would also be able to find out where he had been all that time and what else he had been up to during that time. It would have been foolish to assume he had only spent his time hiding and plotting revenge on Scorpion.

Sylvester, Toby and Ralph looked at them expectantly. Ralph had since stopped clinging to Sylvester, but the two hovered near each other.

"Did you get Collins?" Sylvester asked.

Toby looked at his wife and Cabe with a calculating look, trying to read them.

"He's dead, isn't he?" He asked before one of them could answer. "And from the relaxed way Cabe is holding himself, you didn't shoot him. You would be more tense if you had to shoot someone, no matter how much of a dirtbag he was."

"We heard a crash." Ralph continued. "Two heavy metal objects slamming into each other. Not close enough to still be on the parking lot. But not too far away."

Sylvester was the next to speak.

"By the estimated distance and the volume of the crash's noice, I would assume Collins crashed into another vehicle with enough force to not survive the impact."

Cabe shook his head. "I'm not even surprised anymore." He chuckled. "You got it right. The idiot tore out of the parking lot in such a haste that he crashed into a tractor around the next corner. He broke his neck."

"Good!" Sylvester said firmly, earning him a startled look from his friends.

"He tried to kill Walter and Cabe. He tried to destroy our cyclone!" Sylvester justified himself. "I have every right to be glad he is dead! That doesn't make me a bad person!" He immediately faltered, looking at Toby for support. "Or does it?"

"No, buddy, it doesn't!" Toby patted his shoulder. "After what he did to us it's only natural to be glad he can't do anything to us anymore. Hell, I'm glad that he's gone, too!"

"How about we head to the hospital and check up on Walter and Paige?" Cabe cut in. "Let me just check in with the Lead Agent if they can finish up here alone, then let's grab a ride back home."

o - o - o - o - o - o -o

**Authors note: there will be one, two or maybe even three chapters before I head over into my next story with a new case for the team (new case, new story, but same series) - there is so much I have planned for them going forward that I could add 10 Epilogue chapters, but that would get boring quickly, so I'm hatching a new case plot so I can justify a second story and make this the beginning of a little series. **

**Story titling will not improve, though - I am BAD at coming up with titles, which is why the chapters have no titles of their own - it was hard enough to come up with the main title. **

**Also I do remember I was promised a cookie for what I did with Collins (though I had already had his demise planned out when the offer was made)... I'd like my cookie now, please :-P **


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Paige watched Louise O'Brien knitting with a soft smile.

It was still early in the morning, not even 6 am yet, but Paige had already been wide awake when Louise and Sean O'Brien had arrived at the hospital not even an hour ago.

As Paige had learned from them, Director Cooper had contacted them the moment she had gotten off the phone after dispatching not only the chopper Cabe had requested from her, but also the additional agents she had sent to help them.

And rightly so - without those agents, she would be dead - as well as Walter, who still slept in the hospital bed next to her's.

Unlike Walter, Paige had only slept a few hours after the doctors at the hospital had finished examining her and settling her into their hospital room.

Walter had yet to wake up since they had lost consciousness in the coffin.

The doctors had decided to let him wake up on his body's own accord. She would have been worried about the amount of time he had already been sleeping, but the doctors had assured her that it was a perfectly normal reaction of his body after what they had been through.

The fact that his heart had stopped for a few seconds, the hypoxia, herself lying on him for several hours and his general lack of proper sleep the past weeks had added up and his body was now taking what it needed.

When the O'Brien's had arrived, they had not known anything about their current status, but the fact that they had been taken to a hospital and not a morgue had taken the edge off their worry.

Hearing that her son had almost died had understandably not sat well with Louise. She started to cry, only barely restraining herself from throwing herself at her unconscious son.

Sean had looked upset but had overall been more composed and shown his distress in a calmer manner.

Cabe had been the one to explain what had happened to him. The oldest in the room aside from the O'Briens had started to speak before Sean and Louise could turn to Sylvester as the most familiar to them due to being their son in law and his regular Skype calls with them.

Sylvester was still too upset about everything that had taken place and needed support himself, which Florence gave him by sitting by his side and resting her hand on his arm while he anxiously waited for Walter to wake up.

His life was no longer in danger, but as long as he didn't wake up, no one could tell if there would be any residual effects on his brain.

Talking to his son's surrogate father had had a calming effect on Sean. His worry about his son was still visible, though.

"Parents should not have to bury their children." Paige had heard Sean mumble at one point.

As a mother herself, she felt the strongest sympathy with Louise. She mentally recoiled at the thought of imagining Ralph in the coffin and her being notified about her son being buried alive and no one knowing if they could get to him on time.

After Toby had gotten her a chair to sit right next to Walter's bed, Louise had spent the first few minutes staring at Walter as if she could will him to wake up if she just looked at him intensely enough, then finally had pulled her knitting project out of her bag and started to knit, though her eyes kept flitting over to Walter every few stitches.

Noticing Paige's gaze, she had smiled at her sadly.

"Knitting calms me!" She explained to Paige, then looked down at the her project, a lime green sock. "I've told myself on the plane that I have to finish this pair, because they are for Walter and he'll be alive and well and he'll want to wear them as soon as they're finished."

A reminiscent smile crept onto her lips. "Walter used to complain about the sweaters I kept knitting for him and Megan. But he always wore them. And he looked so cute in them as a boy. I only learned how to do colorwork so I could make him one with a rocket on it." Her smile widened at the memory. "His eyes lit up so bright when he saw the motif."

Paige chuckled. "That sounds so cute. It's really hard to imagine him as a boy. Do you still have photos from when he was a kid?"

"Oh yes, I do. I'll send them to you. My cousin has been digitalising all our old photos for me." Louise told her.

Louise was a nice warm person, and Paige felt she was a good mother, who only had the misfortune of having a genius son she never managed to properly connect with. That she had a stubborn husband who didn't have any restraint when it came to voicing his disapproval when Walter didn't react or behave as he thought he should had not helped her relationship with her son either.

Paige could not help wondering if her own relationship with Ralph would have been similarly strained had it not been for the cyclone and the support they had given her with Ralph.

Before Paige could follow that train of thought further, she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and moved her line of sight away from Louise towards Walter.

o - o - o - o- o - o - o - o

Walter's mind slowly drifted out of the void. The first thing he became aware of were several hushed voices, whispering just below his hearing capability - or maybe his hearing was not yet fully back in sync with his brain, he couldn't be sure, everything was still fuzzy.

Only a second later, the words became more audible and he was confident he recognized Happy's low voice, followed by Toby. And was that Cabe?

He inhaled deeply, absentmindedly noticing that there was something in his nose - he came to the conclusion that it had to be nasal prongs, no doubt providing him with an extra dose of oxygen.

He slowly blinked his eyes open. The lights were dimmed - he was glad for that little fact - they had been lying in complete darkness for hours, going from that to bright lights would have been uncomfortable.

They… he and Paige… his heart skipped.

"Pa… Paige!" He rasped out, drawing the attention of the other people in the room. "Where's Paige?" His words slurred slightly - he assumed it was a side-effect of the same medication that made his mind slightly fuzzy. He could tell it wasn't working on full capacity just yet.

"I'm over here, Walter!" Her soft voice called out.

He looked to his left, where her voice had come from and spotted her in a hospital bed not unlike his own and with no doubt a similar set-up as himself.

She, too, wore nasal prongs and behind her he could see a heart monitor showing a strong, steady heartbeat. The machine next to it showed the oxygen saturation in her blood - it was still on the lower side, but not worryingly so.

He focused his attention back to her.

"Hi!" He said softly.

"Hi!" Paige said back, amusement in her voice. "Welcome back!"

o - o - o - o - o - o - o

"So, did we catch Collins?" Walter asked after he had been able to tear his gaze away long enough from Paige to notice that not only his team, but also his parents were in the room.

Their presence was as much Catherine Cooper's doing as was the fact that Walter and Paige had been given a room together and the team and his parents had been allowed to stay with them well outside of the hospital's usual visiting hours.

The current director of Homeland had been doing a lot of badge flashing on their behalf in the past 14 hours.

She still expected a debriefing, but under the circumstances she was willing to wait until Walter and Paige were well enough to be included in the debriefing.

Before he responded, Cabe stepped forward and handed Walter a cup from the night stand next to his bed, then waited until Walter had taken several small sips to soothe his dry throat.

Walter kept the cup in his hands, twisting it a bit as he waited for the others to answer his question.

"Son, Collins is dead!" Cabe informed him softly.

He was unsure how Walter would react.

Once upon a time Collins had been a part of Scorpion and worked closely together with Walter. The older man was not sure if Collins had ever qualified as a friend for Walter, or if he had simply been a fellow genius, though one with the unfortunate ability to drag Walter down the rabbit hole with him.

"What happened?" Walter asked. He didn't sound shaken in any way, but also not completely indifferent. Cabe almost had the impression Walter was not really sorry about Collins' demise.

But who could blame him? Collins had been the source of a lot of grief for the whole team and Walter and Paige in particular.

Paige had not been sorry about Collins' death in the least. She had not seemed satisfied, more relieved that it was finally over for good. The same as Cabe had felt after he realised Collins had not survived the collision with the tractor.

"He tried to flee in his car and hit a tractor head on. He died on impact." Cabe told him.

"Okay." Walter simply replied. "Is everyone else alright?" He looked around the room.

"Yeah, we're all a bit shaken up, but we're alright." Cabe nodded. "You really scared us, though. We almost ran out of time."

"But, Director Cooper sent us the cavalry." Happy spoke up. "We had narrowed it down to seven graves," Sylvester visible shuddered at the word 'graves'- he was sure he would have died from anxiety if Collins had taken him. "But she sent us enough agents so we could dig them all up at the same time. Without them we would have lost you."

Toby sat in his chair with his arms crossed in front of his chest, his gaze staring a hole in the air in front of him.

"I knew us pretending to mend fences with Walter would lure Collins out - I just wouldn't have thought he'd do it so violently. I mean - he almost killed you."

None of them said out loud what they were thinking. If Collins had not wanted to see them fail - if he had simply wanted to kill them, all he would have had to do was take them all and put each of them into one of those graves - and he would have gotten away with it.

They would have been dead before anyone noticed they were gone.

But he had wanted to play his mind games.

Wanted to see them fail and being destroyed by it.

"Walter, I know Collins once was something like a friend to you," Cabe continued, "It's okay if you feel bad about him dying. No one will hold it against you."

Walter looked up at Cabe. "I don't feel bad about him being dead." Walter frowned. "Why would I? He almost put you in jail, he almost killed Paige and me. He forced us to practically break up for two months. Why should I feel sorry that he's dead? The only thing I feel sorry for is not submitting him to an asylum sooner. Perhaps they would have still been able to help him then."

Cabe pulled a pained face. "No Walter. You don't have to regret not doing that earlier. Since his escape back in Norway, Homeland has been taking a closer look into Collins' background. Did you know that his parents died in a house fire?"

Walter shook his head. "No, I didn't know that. He never spoke about his parents at all. But then I never asked about them." Walter admitted.

Back then the topic of parents, both biological and surrogate, had been a topic Walter didn't want to talk about.

"It was ruled an accident in the end, but there was reasonable doubt that. The arson experts were convinced Collins had something to do with it, but they were not able to prove anything, even though the circumstances of the fire were highly suspicious. So there is a high chance that Collins already was a lost cause when you met him."

Now it was Happy's turn to visibly shudder. She vividly remembered all the times she went up against Collins verbally and even once physically.

Had she been taunting an ice-cold killer?

Toby looked at his wife with wide eyes - the same thought had just crossed his mind.

"OKAY!" Paige suddenly cut in, her voice higher than usual and trying to convey a chipper tone. "New topic! How long will we have to stay in here?"

Toby sat up. As the one with the medical degree from Harvard, he had been appointed contact with the doctors by default.

"Paige, if your blood has a proper oxygen saturation in the afternoon and your other vitals are also well, you can go home, though you will have to take medication for a few days to counter the effects of hypoxia." Toby paused for a moment. "Walt, you'll have to stay one or two nights longer - they want to have you under observation due to your heart having stopped when we dug you up."

o - o - o - o - o - o

Several hours later, the team still had not left the hospital. They had only left the room during mealtimes, when Walter and Paige had been served their breakfast and lunch to get their own breakfast in the hospital cafeteria and their lunch in a nearby diner.

They had returned immediately after each meal. The only other time they set foot outside the room was when the doctors had come in to check on their patients and sent everybody out for privacy.

The nurses kept flitting in and out of the room, making sure Walter and Paige had everything they needed.

Paige had the feeling they were being prioritised - not only because of Catherine's badge, but also because they were in the hospital they had already saved twice.

Once during the outbreak of a rare fungus and a second time when the blood supply had been compromised and Scorpion had made sure that a little girl received the blood she needed for her life-saving surgery.

Normally Paige would have felt like taking advantage to get special treatment like this, but after what they had been through she allowed herself to enjoy it. She trusted the hospital staff to be professional enough to not pamper them at the expense of patients who needed their care more.

24 hours after they had been dug out of their untimely grave, Paige was dressing herself while the others waited outside.

A nurse had just been in a few minutes earlier with her release papers and a stern reminder to not exert herself more than absolutely necessary for the next days.

She knew Walter was watching her dress, so she took her sweet time, giving him something to look at.

And he did watch her with great interest.

Paige watched him watch her out of the corner of her eyes, a small smile on her face. She knew she was being mean, teasing him like that before she would leave the hospital, but she loved teasing him.

And if all went according to plan, she would be more than making it up to him in a few minutes - though a bit differently than he currently hoped for.

She could only stall finishing getting dressed so long, though, and after she was finally dressed, she walked over to the door and signalled for the others to come back in.

Walter watched as the whole gang filed into the room again, a bit disappointed that the show was over. He would have liked a bit of alone time with Paige right about now, but unfortunately he would not get that. Not with the others hovering around and not in a hospital.

As the others re-entered the room, Paige walked back over to their beds, but instead of sitting down on her own, she climbed up onto Walter's bed and lay along his left side, reminding him of the way they had been lying together in the confinement of the coffin - only that Paige now made sure to lie next to him and not on top of him.

She snuggled up against him and pressed a kiss on his cheek to get his full attention. She placed her left hand on his chest, her fingers playing nervously with his hospital gown, gathering all her courage to pour her heart out in front of everyone, to say what she had to say and hopefully getting the response she hoped for.

"Walter, the past two months have been the worst two months of my life." Paige began. "Not only because I was forced to say those horrid, untrue things to you and then not being able to hold you and tell you that they are untrue, that I love you, that I don't care how much you still have to learn on an emotional level or about relationships. I missed you every day and every night. The past two months showed me that I don't want to spend a single night without you anymore. That I love you like I have never loved any man before you. You are the second most important person in my life after Ralph. I know you don't believe in marriage - but you also used to not believe in love and then you changed your mind. Therefore I want to ask you - Walter O'Brien, will you marry me and spend the rest of my life with me?" Paige pulled her lower lip between her teeth and looked at Walter expectantly.

o - o - o - o - o - o

**_Authors note: and I thought I wouldn't find a nice place for a chapter cut again… _**

**_Also: there will probably be more than 1 or 2 epilogue chapters - I will need them to set up everything I want to have set up before the next story starts… _**


	7. Chapter 7

**This is the final chapter of my very first Scorpion story - it's a bit longer than my other chapters, but I neither wanted to split it up into two chapters, nor did I want to remove anything from it. Though there are one or two scenes I took and decided to move over to the next story. You will see them there already in January, I hope. On to the final installment of my Scorpion debut: **

Chapter 7

Paige watched Walter expectantly after the words had poured out of her. She hadn't even put much thought into what she wanted to say - she had just reached into herself and poured her heart out, confident what came out were the right words, simply because they were the truth.

The entire group stood silently, the only sound a gasp that had escaped Louise.

Her hand had flown up to cover her mouth immediately, her eyes bright with tears of joy. After Megan had married Sylvester without any engagement period, or them knowing anything about Sylvester's existence in the first place, Louise had given up hope to see one of her children marry - let alone being present at the proposal. Her free hand clutched her husband's shoulder, partly to steady herself physically, and partially to ground herself and also him.

Sean stared at the scene before him with an expressionless face, mirroring Cabe as if the two eldest in the room waited for the outcome of the scene before them before showing any emotional reaction.

Sylvester and Ralph were grinning widely, almost as if they were having a competition who's grin was wider.

Toby's jaw was halfway on it's way to the ground and Happy wore her trademark minuscule smirk that for her was the equivalent of a huge smile.

Florence's eyes were big as saucers, her breath held as she - like the rest of the group - waited for Walter to react.

Paige had heard Louise gasp, but she didn't turn her head to check for the other's reactions.

The only important reaction had to come from the man right next to her.

Walter looked at Paige for a long moment, no doubt trying to process what had just happened and the emotions it evoked in him.

He suddenly exhaled the air he had been holding the moment Paige had started to speak.

"I never believed in the concept of marriage." Walter admitted. "But I do want to spend the rest of my life with you and I know that marriage is an important concept to you - and because of that, it will also hold great value and meaning for me as well, simply because you are one of my two most important things. What I feel for you, I have never before felt for any other person in my life. You have given me so much. You have not only helped me connect better with the world, which you still do, but you have also shown me that love exists and that it's the best emotion to feel. You have helped me grow as a person and you have given me so much more that I can't begin to properly put into words right now. You have trusted me with your most important thing," His eyes flitted over to Ralph, "and he has also become one of the two most important things in my life as well."

Walter paused for a moment, oblivious to the impatience his long answer created in everyone present, except for Paige who practically soaked up every single one of his words.

"I know I have not been the ideal boyfriend you would have deserved. I do endeavour to be a better fiancé than I was a boyfriend - and if you help me, I will perhaps be able to become the husband you deserve. I love you so much! And yes, I want to marry you!"

Paige squealed in delight and surged towards him, locking her lips with Walter's. Walter wrapped his arms around her as he deepened the kiss, relieved that his words had evidently been enough.

He had been afraid his answer might have been lacking, but the way Paige wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close as they kissed told him he had done well.

Behind them they could hear several held breaths being released, Toby let out a whistle and clapped, but the couple ignored them and continued their kiss.

When they drew apart, Paige smiled.

"I haven't been the perfect girlfriend either, Walter. But as long as we're both working on ourselves, I think we'll do just fine."

She kissed him again, then chuckled, seeing Ralph out of the corner of her eyes. She could see that her son was fighting with himself. On one side, he was thirteen years old now and thirteen year olds wanted to appear cool, no matter their IQ, but he had just been called one of Walter's two most important things and she could literally see him crave to be with them.

She was sure he would have thrown dignity to the side and already leapt onto the bed with them if he wasn't afraid he might hurt Walter or somehow overstep boundaries. She had seen his concern when their doctor had talked to Toby. Ralph was smart enough to know the full extend of what had been said.

"Ralph, honey," she held her hand towards her son. "How about you come here?" She asked.

Ralph smiled thankfully at his mother and climbed into the bed with them. He first hugged his Mom, then climbed nimbly across Walter to settle down on his other side, careful to not interfere with the equipment Walter was still hooked up to. In the end, Walter was in the middle with Paige to his left and Ralph to his right, an arm around each of them. The bed was starting to look a bit crowded.

Cabe chuckled as the boy sat with his mother and his mentor, looking like a cat that had just gotten the best bowl of cream it had ever tasted.

"Unfortunately I didn't have time to get a ring, so I asked Sylvester if it is okay for him if I turn this into a tradition…" Paige returned to the topic of their engagement and produced two band aids from her back pocket. She had gotten them from a nurse when she had slipped out of the room for a moment earlier in the day.

"Though we will be picking out actual engagement rings once we're both getting out of here."

„I have an engagement ring for you." Louise spoke up, removing a ring from her finger.

"This ring that has been passed down in my family to be given to the first born child in our family for generations, but since Megan went right ahead and married Sylvester without getting engaged first, I would love to see you wear it, Paige." She said with a smile as she walked up to the bed and handed the ring to Walter so he could slip it onto Paige's finger.

Walter nervously took the ring from his mother, but before he could slip it onto Paige's finger, Sylvester cut in.

"Shouldn't it be Walter who wears a ring? I mean, it was Paige who proposed to Walter, not the other way around?"

"That ring will hardly fit Walter's fingers." Toby pointed out the obvious.

"I can help with that!" Happy spoke up. "I can make a copy of that ring to Walter's size, so they can both wear matching engagement rings."

"I thought only the female partner in an engagement wears a ring." Walter said, confused and also a little bit annoyed, after all the discussion had delayed him putting the ring on Paige's finger.

Admittedly it was a subject he knew near nothing about, mainly because he had never expected to get to the point of needing that knowledge in the first place.

"Maybe in the past, but nowadays it is more and more popular that the male partner also shows that they are committing to a serious relationship." Florence informed them.

Unlike Walter, she had already looked the information up years ago, when she had gotten to the point in a relationship where the prospect of being proposed to had become a probability. Unfortunately her partner back then had had other plans. One of the many disappointments that had caused her to put a wall up around herself. A wall that Scorpion had managed to come crumbling down.

"I would really love it if you'd wear a ring as well." Paige smiled softly at Walter, turning on her charm.

Walter chuckled, recognising the smile and tone Paige whipped out when she wanted him to do something she was sure he wouldn't want to do. Unfortunately knowing that smile didn't mean that he was able to resist it.

But this time he wasn't about to even try.

He liked the idea of showing everyone that they had committed to each other.

"I'd love to wear an engagement ring." He said softly. "Though I am confused as to when Happy has acquired knowledge and experience in making rings?"

"I needed a distraction." Happy said defensively. "You and the waitress are not the only ones who had a hard time the past two months, okay?"

"I'm sorry, Happy." Walter cringed. With his own pain about having to pretend to be broken up, it had been easy to forget the others had had their troubles with the situation as well.

"Forget it, Walt." Happy waved him off. "I'm glad we're where we are now. And if you like the engagement ring, I would be happy," she shot Toby a glare to shut him up before he could even think of commenting on her unintended word play, "if you would let me make your wedding rings as well."

"That would be so nice of you, Happy, thank you!" Paige smiled brightly. She had seen some of the pieces Happy had designed in the past weeks and Paige had to admit while they were not necessarily her own style, they were beautifully crafted and uniquely Happy Quinn's style.

And having a set of wedding bands custom made for them by their friend would make them twice as special.

"Uh… yes, thank you." Walter parroted after Paige, his head swimming from all the emotions of the past minutes.

"Consider it my wedding gift for you two! And now get on with it and put that ring on Paige's finger!" Happy replied, while her brain already started throwing designs for the wedding bands up before her inner eye.

She itched to get to sketch them out for Paige and Walter to see and discuss with her.

Walter nodded at Happy, then looked into Paige's eyes as he reached for her hand and slipped the ring into place as they both leaned in for another kiss to seal their engagement.

"Well, congratulations, kid, Paige!" Cabe grinned like the proud father he felt like.

Ralph beamed as if he tried to outshine the sun - his little family within the cyclone was back together.

"One thing is sure." Sean spoke up. "Us O'Briens always seem to be in the hospital on our engagement days."

"What do you mean, Dad?" Walter asked, looking up from the beautiful woman - no longer his girlfriend, but his fiancé now.

"Well, I think I never told you that, but when I wanted to propose to your mother, I was so excited and anxious that I walked into a door and broke my nose." He grimaced at the memory.

"He wouldn't let me drive him to the hospital until he finished his proposal, blood dripping down his face and everything." His wife chuckled at the memory.

"I'm still not sure if she didn't just say yes out of pity." Sean said ruefully.

"Don't be silly!" Louise laughed, slapping her husband's shoulder. "Of course I love you! I'm still here, aren't I?" She turned to her son. "Walter, I am so happy for you! I've always been afraid you would never find someone you would want to spend your life with!" She turned to Paige. "Paige, welcome to our family! Walter couldn't have picked a nicer lass."

"Thank you, Louise!" Paige blushed slightly.

"I am so happy, you are going to be part of our family now!" Louise told her with a smile, then looked to Walter's right. "Ralph, you are of course also welcome to our family!" She turned to the cyclone's youngest member.

Ralph smiled at her politely. "Thank you, Mrs. O'Brien!"

"It's Louise! I don't know if my son and your mother are planning to have any more children - and I will certainly not push them. But I would be very proud if you would allow us to consider you our grandchild?"

"I would like that very much." Ralph said politely, not needing to check in with his mother for confirmation. He knew she would leave the decision whom he considered for what role in his life to him.

When he did glance at her after his response for a split second, he saw her nodding at him with an approving smile.

He hadn't had much opportunity to talk to Sean and Louise so far, but having watched them worry about Walter before he had woken up, he had seen that they cared, even though he knew the relationship had been strained in the past.

But they did care and he knew from his mom they had been trying to do better by Walter recently. That was good enough for Ralph.

Except for Veronica, Ralph hadn't known any of his grandparents. His mom's father had already passed away when he had been born and he had never met his own father's parents. They had been killed in a car accident during the time his father had not been a part of Ralph's life.

The only person that had been like a grandfather to him so far was Cabe.

The thought of getting a new set of grandparents was nice, and perhaps it would also help bring Walter and his parents closer together again. Ralph liked the thought of being able to do that for Walter, after all Walter had helped his mom connect to him, so it was only fair if he returned the favor.

Sean smiled at him. "I know that you're a genius like my son, he and Sylvester have told us so much about you already and Walter is very proud of you - he can't stop talking about you."

"Thank you, Sir." Ralph responded politely.

Then a thought suddenly occurred to the young genius.

"Mom, now that you and Walter have gotten engaged, does that mean we're moving into the garage with Walter?" Ralph made sure his voice conveyed his hopefulness for a positive answer.

"No, Ralph, not until Walter and you have build you that room I have heard about. I'm not having you sleep in the airstream for months! We'll be living in our condo and Walter will go home with us every night."

Ralph's face lit up again. "YES!" Ralph was happy with that response. Not only had she just practically approved the room, but Walter coming to the condo every night meant he would get more quality time with his mentor.

Of course he knew why his mom wanted Walter to come to the condo with them, but until it was his bedtime, she would have to share the older genius with her son.

"I will?" Walter asked, confused. He hadn't been consulted about that yet.

"I mean, I'd love to." He quickly corrected himself as he saw his father face palm at Walter's reaction and Cabe roll his eyes.

"Yes you will! The past two months without you have been horrible. I don't want to spend another night without you right by my side." Paige replied, then smiled softly, "And it's not that I'll have to worry about Ralph having a problem with it - seeing that he's already been making his own plans to move in with you."

o - o - o - o - o - o

It had taken them a few more hours to leave the hospital after that. No one had been in a hurry to leave just yet, too excited about Paige's proposal and Walter accepting it.

In the end it had been Happy and Toby who left first.

Even though Director Cooper had told them they didn't need to rush to collect their belongings from Centipede Partners, Happy was eager to get their stuff back into the garage as quickly as possible and start on the ring.

Happy had not said anything more on the topic of the ring, but Toby knew his wife well enough to know that she was determined to put that ring on Walter's finger before his parents left to go back to Ireland.

Family was important to the young engineer who had so long had to live without a family of her own and Walter and Paige were part of that family she had found for herself at Scorpion.

And for that reason it was important for Happy to see to it that Walter's parents got to see the ring she was going to make.

Toby was also smart enough to not keep Happy from her plans. If she wanted to move her tools and projects back to the garage today and also start on the ring, he would let her. He would complain about it and tease her with his comments, but he would not actively make her leave before she was ready to turn in for the day.

He wanted to continue having a sex life after all - or a life for that matter.

The next to leave had been Florence and Sylvester. Blushing furiously, Sylvester informed them that he and Florence had decided to head out for dinner together on a spontaneous first date.

In the end only the three O'Briens, Paige, Ralph and Cabe had been left, until Cabe had eventually pushed Paige and Ralph to leave as he, too, had plans with Allie for the evening.

Paige had thought about asking if she could stay another night, but she didn't want to take up a bed that an actual patient might need. And after what had happened, she didn't want to leave Ralph alone, especially since everyone was already having plans for the night.

Louise and Sean had stayed behind. Catherine Cooper had booked them into a small hotel in walking distance of the hospital, so all they needed to do was stroll down the street for a few minutes to get to their hotel.

Back in her condo, Paige had spent a solid minute staring at her bed in frozen silence, until she had decided she would not spend another night sleeping in her bed alone.

Ralph had been excited at her suggestion to sleep at the garage and had packed up his overnight bag at lightning speed, ending up being the one to push his mom to move faster.

As they arrived back in the garage shortly before dinner time, Ralph immediately zoned in on Ferret Bueller's cage, feeding the little animal. The ferret was understandably put out and loudly made his discontent known.

Walter had never gotten around to feeding him in the morning - neither had Collins cared to do so when he had abducted Walter - and when the Team had been at the garage to find out what had happened to them, no one had thought about Ferret Bueller.

The little animal was not happy about going without food for a full day. After receiving his food, he pointedly ignored them.

Ralph just shrugged and headed over to set himself up in the airstream after watching Ferret Bueller practically inhale his dinner.

Paige had wandered upstairs into the kitchen and sighed at the sight before her. She had already heard that Walter had taken their pretend break-up badly - Cabe had warned her - but that her usually exceptionally tidy boyfriend - no fiancé - she corrected herself - had turned into a slob…

She quickly collected the dirty dishes he had cluttered all over the kitchen and shoved them into the dish washer before turning it on.

Wandering into the bedroom, she again could only shake her head. Walter had never left his dirty laundry lying around. Apparently broken-hearted Walter did. She decided she needed to have a talk with him once he was back home. She could only hope this was his idea of trying to put on a show of a broken-hearted man for Collins.

If it was not, she hoped she would never have to find out the state of mind a real break-up would put Walter in.

She was just picking up the last pieces of Walter's discarded clothing and tossing them into the washing machine, when she heard familiar voices downstairs.

Happy and Toby had arrived, bickering loudly.

Deciding she could still run the washing machine in the morning, Paige headed down via the ramp and was greeted by a triumphant Toby.

"Hah!" He cheered. "Told you Paige would not stay at her condo! She's been lonely for two months without 197 and her primal brain can't stand another night without him, so she's here to roll around in his bed and surround herself with his smell!"

"Shut it, or you'll NOT be rolling around anywhere remotely near MY smell tonight!" Happy growled as she handed Paige one of the two bags from Kowelski's she was holding.

"Here, the Doc was so sure you would be here he insisted on getting you and Ralph your usuals."

"Thank you!" Paige watched with amusement as Toby continued his now silent victory dance into the downstairs kitchenette to get them all forks for their dinner.

o - o - o - o - o - o

Walter came home the next afternoon.

The doctors had checked him over during the morning visit and had been satisfied with his vitals. They still wanted him to come up for follow-up checks for his heart, but where willing to let him go for the moment, courtesy of having his own medical trained doctor to watch over him at his company.

That Toby was foremost a behaviourist had been a detail Walter had made sure to keep to himself.

Louise and Sean were already sitting in his room when Paige arrived. Sean was reading the newspaper, while Louise knitted something purple, words flowing from her mouth in sync with the clicking of her needles.

From what Paige picked up before Louise stopped her tale to greet her future daughter-in-law, she was bringing her son up to date about their family back home.

Apparently someone named Finnegan had a daughter who had flipped her car and had landed on her roof in the field of one of Sean's cousins, shocking a sheep so bad the poor animal had run head first into the next tree in it's panic.

"Good Morning Paige!" Walter greeted his brand new fiancée with enthusiasm, clearly glad Paige had arrived to save him from more stories from back home. Paige could imagine Louise had been taking him through everything that happened since their last Skype call all morning.

Paige smiled when she closed in on Walter to kiss him and noticed his feet sticking out from under the sheets, clad in the lime green socks Louise had been knitting the other day.

"Nice socks!" She commented after they kissed.

She sat the bag with fresh clothes for him down on a free chair before settling down next to him on the bed.

"Mom made them for me." Walter wriggled his toes for emphasis.

"I know, I saw her make them." Paige smiled and gave him another kiss. "Are you ready to head home?"

"My discharge papers should be ready any moment." Walter told her, getting ready to climb out of his bed. Before he did, he quickly snuck another kiss from Paige, slightly self-conscious about kissing her in front of his parents, but unwilling to leave her without a kiss to head to the bathroom to get dressed.

o - o - o - o - o - o

Three days later, Walter was ready to scale the walls.

His mother was officially driving him crazy - and his father had abandoned him.

Seeing his wife go into overprotective mother-hen mode, Sean had jumped onto Cabe's offer to show him his favourite spots in and around of L.A. and practically only dropped off his wife at the garage in the mornings and reappeared in the evenings to pick her up to take her back to the hotel.

"Paige, do something!" Walter wined after his mother had returned to the kitchen, humming to herself.

"She's not that bad!" Paige chided, but had to suppress a grin.

After all she had just watched Louise confiscate Walter's laptop. Walter had of course tried to protest, but Louise had expertly guilt-tripped him like only a mother could, rendering her son speechless as she took the laptop with her.

Her little rant had included an emotionally laden reminder that she had spent 12 hours on a military transport flight, not knowing whether her only son survived or if she would be told he was dead when she landed. She had to learn that he had almost died, his heart had even stopped and now the least he could do was heed his doctor's words to take it easy and not work.

"She is!" Walter protested. "She took my computer! And my other devices."

"She is right, though, the doctors said you should take it easy and she knows you well enough to know it's not entertainment you use your devices for. She's only worried for your health, love!"

"But limiting my screen time?" Walter continued his lament. "I'm not ten!"

"Well, you sure whine like a ten year old right now!" Paige snorted, then schooled her face back to a serious expression when she saw Walter's hurt look.

"Okay, I'll get her out of the garage for a few hours." She promised, kissing the corner of his mouth as Walter pretended fo pout. He perked up at her words.

"That would be great!" He turned his head and kissed her full on the lips. "That's why you're my favourite fiancée!"

"I'm your only fiancée." She mock-glared at him, knowing he was just teasing her, "At least it would be better for you if I were!"

"The only one I'll ever want!" Walter assured her.

o - o - o - o - o - o - o

Paige kept her word and convinced Louise to let herself be treated to a day of sightseeing with her future daughter in law after her visit so far had been centered around her son.

Louise didn't leave without giving Walter a stern talking to about what he should and more importantly shouldn't do, set him up with a nice cup of tea on his couch and finally left with Paige.

As soon as the two women had left the garage, Walter grabbed his computer and switched it on with a content sigh and started coding, completely forgetting about the cup of tea his mother had made for him.

It wasn't like the program he was working on was overdue, but as he had been banned from physical exertion for at least two weeks and his friends watching over that rule like hawks, computer tasks were pretty much all he had left.

He had been able to busy himself while his mother had watched over him, but it had all been compromises and therefore not fully satisfying his mind. In his desperation he had even tried daytime TV, but switched it off in horror after lasting not even the first five minutes.

Finally reunited with his computer, he lost himself in his coding, the sounds of Happy working at her workbench a soft background noise. He knew she was putting the final touches on his engagement ring.

The engineer had been working on it since they had returned their stuff to the garage and she was determined to finish that ring before Louise and Sean left to allow them to be present when Paige got to slip the ring on Walter's finger.

Their flight home was scheduled in two days, but at the pace Happy was going at it, Sylvester estimated she would be finished today. Walter could only assume his brother was right. He had been banned from Happy's workspace after she had measured his finger for the ring and been told he would find himself in serious pain if he approached before the ring was finished.

Toby had just shrugged and told him to roll with it. Happy had taken Scorpion's faux-separation worst after Paige and Walter. Even the pretend break-up of the family she had finally found for herself had hit where it hurt most.

They were all due some time with Cecil Rizzuto as it seemed. Not in his capacity as the friend he had become since that baseball game against Homeland, but in his more professional capacity.

To Walter's surprise, Toby had agreed with him. Paige had already made an appointment for the team, but her and Walter's individual and couple sessions were scheduled first, only a few days after they would say goodbye to Walter's parents.

o - o - o - o - o - o - o

When Louise and Paige had returned to the garage, they were treated to the sight of Toby trying to bribe Ferret Bueller with treats, but the ferret kept ignoring the behaviourist just as he had the previous days.

In fact the ferret had been ignoring all five of them, as if he held a grudge that they had not been in the garage for two months. The little animal had only started warming back up to Ralph, Paige and Happy a day ago, but kept ignoring Toby. He had even gone to Sylvester, even though Sylvester had avoided the animal before the split, trying to avoid the germs he was sure the animal carried.

"Oh come on!" Toby whined. "It's not like we did this to spite you, Bueller!"

"Give him some time, Toby!" Paige told him as she went to the cage, took the treat from Toby and handed it to Ferret Bueller, earning her excited chattering as the ferret grabbed the treat from her with his tiny paws. He sat back on his haunches as he nibbled on the treat, staring smugly at Toby with his little dark eyes.

Toby stuck his tongue out at the pet.

"And don't try so hard!" Happy added, "He knows you're eager for him to accept you back and he's making you work for it!"

"Some genius you are!" Cabe grinned from his spot on the couch. "Outsmarted by a ferret!"

He and Sean had arrived back at the garage only an hour ago and were busy watching the football game they had found flipping channels as Sean waited for Louise to return.

Toby opened his mouth to gripe back at Cabe, but Happy was faster.

"Paige, Walt, I've finished your engagement ring!"

"You're already finished?" Paige asked, surprised. She had seen Happy work on the ring with determination, but she still had not expected her to finish so fast.

"We didn't have any jobs that required my expertise this week." Happy reminded them. "So I thought I'd get your ring done as long as I have time and before you have gone through that whole box of band aids I saw that nurse slip you."

"And we are very thankful for that!" Paige smiled at Happy "Can we see it now?"

"Of course!" Happy said. She produced a little box that held both rings.

After the ring had been on her finger while Walter had still been in the hospital, Paige had taken her ring off and given it to Happy so she could work directly from the original. She had decided she didn't want to wear her ring before Walter had his.

"I copied the patterns on Paige's ring and rescaled them to accommodate the size of Walter's ring, so the two rings will look like they belong together, I even treated the material to look as aged as the original ring. They would look mismatched if one showed it's age and the other was all new and shiny."

"Ooooh!" Toby urged her. "Stop talking, show us the ring!" Happy had not allowed anyone but herself to see the ring yet, not even Toby, though he had made a game out of trying to sneak a peek.

Happy silenced her husband with a glare.

"Shutting up now!" Toby grimaced.

Paige licked her lips in excitement as Happy handed her the box.

"It's your engagement, Paige, you do the honors!"

"I'm not getting down on my knee, you already got your proposal." She winked at Walter.

"But, just to make sure - I hope you haven't changed your mind and will accept this ring." She held the box out towards Walter and opened it.

Her eyes filled with tears as she saw the rings as a set for the first time.

"Oh Happy! This is beautiful! You did a great job! Thank you so much!" She breathed as she picked out the bigger, broader one and twisted it between her fingers to look at the intricate celtic patterns, before reaching for Walter's hand to slip the ring on his finger.

Walter swallowed as he watched Paige inspect the ring, then slip it onto his finger.

Letting out the breath he had been holding, Walter mirrored or her actions and picked the remaining ring, an exact, smaller version of his own ring, from the box and slipped it onto her finger, smiling happily at his fiancée.

The rings were made of silver with intricate celtic patterns carved into them. The only difference between the two rings was the tiny white stone set into the centre of the smaller ring. Paige wasn't sure if it was a diamond or a less valuable stone, but she didn't care. This stone had been in Walter's family for generations and she felt deeply honored to be allowed to wear it.

Happy had really outdone herself with Walter's ring. On first view, no one would have guessed that one ring was a few generations older than the other.

Paige pulled her lower lip between her teeth as she looked at her hand and the ring that now rested on her finger. Her eyes moved from her hand to Walter before she stepped into his space, grabbed his face between her palms and kissed him.

o - o - o - o - o - o - o

As promised, Walter had started going back to Paige's condo with her and Ralph every night since he had been discharged from the condo.

The first night, Paige had set down the rules:

If the bedroom door was open or only halfway closed, Ralph could come in at any time if he needed anything. If the bedroom door was closed, he should knock and then wait until they called for him to come in. If he didn't get a response, he was supposed to knock louder and call out to them loudly.

The first few nights had been uneventful, but four days in, Walter was woken from his sleep by someone shoving at his back.

"Wah?" He peered over his shoulder, his mind a bit unfocused from just being woken up. He was still recovering from the after effects of hypoxia and was not sure yet if his deeper sleep came from those aftereffects and the medications he had to take for them or if sleeping with the woman he loved in his arms allowed him deeper relaxation.

"Walter, move over!" Ralph whispered to him as he pushed at Walter's back again.

Walter grunted as he moved to turn around towards Ralph to see what was up. As he finished turning, he switched on the bedside lamp.

His eyes needed another second to adjust to the light, but then he noticed Ralph's damp cheeks.

"What's up buddy?" He asked, scooting a bit back towards Paige to finally give Ralph the requested space.

Ralph didn't say anything until he had climbed into bed and wrapped his arms around Walter, burying his face into Walter's pyjama clad chest as if to hide his tear streaked face.

Walter wrapped his arms around the younger genius and rubbed his back.

"Bad dream?" He asked.

Ralph nodded, and after a moment finally lifted his head.

"We were back on the cemetery." He whispered softly. "And we had just dug you up. The EMTs were working on you and saying that your heart had stopped." He paused, sniffling softly. "but in my dream they didn't manage to bring you back. You stayed dead! And then I woke up and I was back in my room and I wasn't sure anymore if you were alive or not…" Ralph looked at him unhappily. "I wasn't sure anymore which version was true. The one where you lived and got engaged with Mom or the one where you died. I had to check!"

"That's okay, buddy." Walter rubbed his back again.

"I'm glad you're not dead!" Ralph informed him.

Walter chuckled. "I'm glad about that fact as well!"

"Can I stay here for tonight?" Ralph asked softly.

"Sure. You want to lie between your Mom and me?" Walter asked.

Instead of answering, Ralph climbed across Walter, accidentally catching him in the stomach with his knee, causing Walter to groan softly.

"Sorry, Walter!" Ralph whispered as he settled in between Paige who had slept through everything and Walter.

"No problem." Walter assured him as he waited for Ralph to settled down before he switched off the lamp. "Good night, Ralph!"

"Good night, Dad!" Ralph mumbled sleepily.

Walter continued to lay awake for a long time that night, grinning widely in the darkness.

The end - for now!

o - o - o - o - o - o - o

**Here is a little teaser for the next story in what I hope is becoming either a trilogy - or a even a series (I already have a plot for part II and maybe for part III - beyond that, we'll have to see - I might even be inclined to take suggestions…) **

_Paige had taken a few days to decide on how to breach the subject to Drew._

_If the conversation got off on the wrong note, Drew might clam up and not be open to their request._

_She looked at Walter, who gave her a reassuring smile, while the rest of the gang sat at their respective desks, unusually silent. None of them wanted to miss the call Paige was about to make._

_„__Wish me luck!" she said before she hit dial._

_The sound of a phone ringing just outside the garage door startled them._

_„__Did we somehow summon him? Like a demon?" Toby's jaw dropped as the door opened and Drew walked in._

_The man looked like he was in a hurry and didn't even bother to look at his phone._

_Instead he zoned in on Walter, stopping right in front of the genius._

_„__O'Brien, you have to help me!" Drew was frantic, barely keeping himself from grabbing Walter by his shoulders to emphasize his request, afraid the genius might refuse to help if he touched him against his will. _

**I'm not sure how long it will take me to get the next story going, as January is a busy month at my job, but I hope to be able to present the first chapter soon and update frequently. **


End file.
